The Definition of a Reploid
by Laryna6
Summary: Is a replica android: a copy of X. After X disappears, Ciel creates an X with red eyes and no idea what he's in for. Luckily, X didn't raise any idiots. Unluckily, Weil's coming back. Those who inherit the future must be ready to defend their birthright.
1. Child of Heaven

_The retirement of reploids in Neo Arcadia as an incredibly stupid way to handle an energy crisis, and I use the word incredibly in the accurate sense of 'not believable.' _Recycling takes energy_. This is one reason why recycling paper is an incredibly bad idea, on top of the facts it means less trees and produces incredibly toxic waste. There are also the problems with the Prius, and actually most of them would be far far worse in Neo Arcadian times than the modern day._

_The only realistic reason to scrap reploids when they need a workforce and therefore have to keep building more is to keep reploid average age down, preventing rebellion. Of course, this lowers the standard of living of humans too due to the waste of energy, on top of meaning they don't have skilled workers. They'd have to be aware that the means of controlling the populace they're using the energy crisis to justify just makes it worse._

_Pantheon-type drones might burn less power if they think less, but the trouble is that things that don't think die easily, meaning new ones have to be built, and there are other things that require thinking, like inventing decent power sources or ways to conserve energy._

_A Neo Arcadia that didn't have that policy would be vastly better off. _

_I also tend to start from the assumption that Copy-X was not created evil. He was built by Ciel to help people. He was just an infant and shoved into the pressure cooker that was the straw that broke X's back._

* * *

As soon as Ciel had been ushered off by Phantom (there was only so much protesting she could legitimately do: she had no place at a family reunion) and the door closed behind them, Harpuia put his head in his hands. "That little idiot."

She was a human female. A _fertile_ human female, product of all the latest genetic research into ensuring health (despite the radiation and chronic food problems), sanity (despite the quite reasonable reasons for a human go to irregular) and intelligence (despite the rarity of meat products with the proteins the brains of gestating children needed).

And apparently the researchers had screwed up majorly somewhere, because the girl was a _completely insane brain-damaged moron_. For the sake of humanity she clearly had to be removed from the gene pool, one way or another.

"No, this could turn out for the best," Leviathan said, glaring at their 'guest.' "Everyone's saying that the courts are biased towards humans. It'll help PR when she gets executed for high treason."

"What are you talking about?" Their… 'guest' tried to seem like he didn't know what they were talking about.

This failed utterly, along with the rest of his attempts at acting. Ciel had spent _how _long building her fake (and this explained the thefts of certain materials), and she hadn't bothered to get the eye color right (Master X would _never _wear the eyes of a maverick) or give him any acting lessons? Of course, perhaps she had been a bit rushed at the end. Things were getting a little… difficult.

But this wasn't going to help.

"You know what we're talking about, you fake!" Fefnir growled.

"A fake X, constructed by a human? She's dead as a doornail. Was she _trying_ to remind everyone of Dr. Weil?"

"I'm not a fake?"

"Ooooh?" Leviathan asked, folding her arms. "If you're my father, then what was his nickname for me? And there's no way he wouldn't have hugged us first thing, after so long, cameras or no cameras."

Harpuia sighed. "You just _had _to remind me of the media circus Ciel ensured on the way in."

"Well, that's…"

"You've got a built-in mode conversion taking up valuable space," Fefnir chimed in next. "X would _never _do that, if he needed extra combat features that's what armor was for. It's obviously just there so you could pretend you were getting armors from Grandfather still."

"How did you…"

"You were scanned on the way in. Master X would have known this building's security features." Phantom was the one who spoke next, from behind the fake. "Not to mention that this is not how he would react if accused of not being himself. Not after experiencing all that he has. You are obviously just an innocent newbuilt, and Ciel already confirmed it." Well, no, not even he worked that fast, even if as the stealth unit he, like Harpuia, knew quite a lot about human medicine, but Master X would have known that. The copy obviously didn't. "You shouldn't be held responsible for her crimes."

"Well, if we're executing her, he'll be tarred with the same brush," Harpuia pointed out. "And complete remodels are expensive. His testimony at her trial or other services would have to be enough to justify both letting him live and the expense." Normally, the good cop/bad cop positions were reversed, but all Phantom had to worry about were security and the potential for riots.

The rough division of resources after X had disappeared (leaving a note saying that he had vanished for good reason and a long time, and would not be returning to take charge of the city - a note they hadn't made public and the fake hadn't mentioned) had ended up with Fefnir in charge of the city's boarder guard and keeping down the population of rogue mechanaloids in the outskirts, Leviathan guarding the various plants outside the city's borders (where the more dangerous generators and various other things were kept hidden away in ruins at a safe distance), Phantom handling policing actions and Harpuia trying to handle the council and public opinion and so on.

He hated it, but he'd drawn the short stick, even though Leviathan would have been a better figurehead entirely-temporary not-ruler by virtue of being blue. Not that kept repeatedly bringing this fact up, especially not when she was asking for more resources that he couldn't give her because of the crisis and the need to keep neo Arcadia under control. He was too mature for that. He limited himself to glaring at her occasionally, on every other really frustrating day.

"I'm not a fake and she didn't build me. She found me in…"

"Look, you're just digging yourself in deeper. If you can't even give us _one _sign that confirms you're our father, then just give up," Leviathan said, stepping and then leaning forward into his personal space, holding her weapon in a way that would have made X tell her to stop that, not made him back up.

"I look like him?"

"Not really. Sure, you're physically close-ish, I guess, but your eye color is just the most outrageous screw-up." Fefnir was not impressed.

"You don't carry yourself the way he did, and that would have been the easiest to mimic." There were outrageous amounts of footage of X in the archives. "The fact your copy of X's face is so accurate means that it's as expressive as his. That just makes it painfully clear there's an entirely different person behind those _red _optics. You might have his general energy signature, but an unauthorized copy was made of our best version of his plans and sold on the black market years ago. We've been waiting for something like you to show up." Phantom circled him. "Leviathan's actual birthday, what research project he was working on when he had a moment, the contents of the time capsule that was buried about a year and a half before Dr. Weil's announcement," during those precious, long-past years of peace, "the names of those he considered his niece and nephews," Dr. Cain's personal creations: Sigma, Colonel, Iris and Signas, "the name of our older step-brother, X's favorite human food: care to give us any of those as evidence?"

The copy was only able to look away.

"Good, because they wouldn't have worked. Of course, this really demonstrates how little research other than reploid design Ciel put into this. All of those are matters of public knowledge, and X would have known that." Well, they were in the public record, even if there probably wasn't anyone but the four of them and a few reporters and historians that knew all of them.

"Don't even think of trying to fight your way out of here and rescue your builder," Fefnir warned him, watching the newbuilt try to think of what to do. "Humans are squishy, after all, and we couldn't allow either of you to escape."

"Don't make us shoot at a human," Harpuia warned him. "No one would convict us, but she should have a trial." Although he doubted the fake was maneuverable enough in midair to keep Harpuia from snatching her out of his arms, altform or no altform.

"…Is Ciel really going to be executed?" the newbuilt asked pitifully, and they knew they had him. "Because I'm not good enough?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Leviathan scolded him. "How old are you?"

"Six days," he said, voice small and quiet.

"That's barely enough for system tests, and she probably just installed you with a file of everyone's names and faces." Ridiculous, Phantom's expression said clearly. "You're a newbuilt, you can't blame yourself for your builder being too incompetent to let you do your job right. If she dies, it will be because she's defective, not you."

"If?" Harpuia asked, outraged. "Phantom, that's low." Giving the newbuilt hope that his maker might survive if he cooperated with them well enough? Playing on his misplaced feelings like that?

"Well, think about it." Phantom looked at the newbuilt meaningfully.

"What?"

"Everyone's panicking and things are so difficult because Master X is gone. And now he's back."

"Are you suggesting we go along with Ciel's charade and deceive the people of Neo Arcadia?"

Harpuia looked at Leviathan and Fefnir for support and saw that their responses could be summed up by, 'Hell yes!'

"That's an incredibly foolish idea, if the charade is discovered it will destroy public trust in us and as Master X's children we are the only ones with any kind of public legitimacy." They could vote in a new council all they wanted: it wouldn't help. After Weil, after all the evidence of how difficult it was to survive and that they needed strong leadership that everyone could trust? Without X, without even the legacy of X, Neo Arcadia would fall apart. All the different groups and factions would believe that without X to look after them, they would have to look out for number one. Seeing their faces, Harpuia's attempt to be calm and argue rationally failed him. "You can't be serious! Are _you _the six-day-olds?"

"He doesn't actually have to do much. We can coach him in how to stand there and look competent," Leviathan said thoughtfully, looking the newbuilt up and down like an outfit she was considering buying, back in the days when they'd done those things. "Everyone would understand that X is busy catching up, and we could say that he's still working on the project he went away to concentrate on and came back just to reassure people. Most people don't know X as well as we do, and when people do meet him, they're generally too busy trying to avoid worshipping the ground he walks on _too _embarrassingly to ask thoughtful questions."

"Reporters," Harpuia countered.

"Manageable." That was Phantom's assessment. "With some tutoring and proper incentive. Provided she didn't implant any obedience programming into him that we can't remove."

"She didn't," the newbuilt said, trying to stick up for her.

Fefnir snorted. "Right. What kind of idiot would let a newbuilt run Neo Arcadia? This job's impossible. You've got to do two thousand things with twenty kilowatthours. The place would fall apart around you no matter how hard you worked."

"She didn't. She said she trusted me." To make sure that things would be okay for her and the other humans who were having so much trouble surviving with so little food.

The four of them just stared.

"I don't know if that makes me want to have someone dig up an old electric chair more or less," Fefnir said finally, after sitting down.

"Don't be ridiculous, that would waste valuable energy," Leviathan told him. "We'll just hang her."

"While leaving out obedience programming is theoretically very nice, if she didn't just lie and say that she hadn't, this is…" Harpuia put his head in his hand again. Putting the fate of Neo Arcadia in the hands of a newbuilt who didn't have a clue what they were doing and would blame themselves for every little thing that went wrong, and countless things went wrong, or were wrong to start with, every day? "She really did think that you were going to turn out like Master X. That little idiot." That was the perception everyone had of X, after all. That he could magically handle everything because he was Dr. Light's creation. That he could, that he _should _just take anything and carry on, despite everyone and everything he'd lost. "This job would have chewed you up and spat you out." An idealistic little child trying his hardest? Trying to do something that had worn their father down until he finally disappeared?

"Fortunately," Leviathan said, clapping the newbuilt on the shoulder hard enough it tipped him forward a bit. "You have us to tell you what to do. Just let big sis Levi and the rest of us take care of everything." Or else.

* * *

The door to Ciel's room (theoretically it was a very nice guest room, but Phantom had audibly locked the door behind her and Ciel's attempt to access the outside world with her datapad to see how things were going had caused it to burn out) opened and Ciel walked in.

As the prisoner sat on the edge of a very nice bed with a sage-green comforter (this had been Harpuia's room before he moved full-time into a room in his unit's barracks: Harpuia was the most serious of them all about not giving himself any extra space, energy or privileges his soldiers or the common people didn't have) and stared, her twin, looking thoughtfully into space instead of at her, thought aloud.

"Well, the next thing to do is to attend the press conference. The grateful city is going to force the Guardians to give me _something_, so I'll accept a grant to work on developing a new type of generators. Copy-X's internal power source _was _really well made, if I do say so myself. That grant will let me set up a workshop somewhere. Outside Neo Arcadia, obviously, in case anything goes boom, the way it will if I make any more stupid mistakes."

Ciel's face paled.

"I wasn't going to contact Copy-X anyway, in case I gave it away, so I'm certainly not going to ask for visitation rights. Obviously I'm not going to reveal that he's a fake, either. That would defeat the purpose and who would the city believe: the Guardians or me? Of course X's children would know their own father. No one would seriously believe that they'd be fooled by a child's fake, and there are all sorts of things that only they and X would know. I'm lucky that everyone wants X back so much that they're not going to ask too many questions and the Guardians are willing to let me get away with no punishment besides exile as long as I don't cause any trouble, aren't I?" Now the Copy-Ciel looked at her mirror image. "Aren't I?" It was strange to see her own eyes soften with gentle but stern disappointment. "Aren't you, Ciel?" Please, those eyes asked. They didn't want to have to kill her, but they would if that was what it took to keep everyone safe.

"Who are you?"

Eyes that looked too old and wise to be hers examined her, then smiled, almost sadly. "I suppose that since you're going into exile, it won't hurt." There was the distinctive light distortion of a cloaking system disengaging.

Ciel stared, eyes wide. "…X?" Really? No, of course this was really him. Of course he wouldn't have abandoned them, but, "Why?"

He sighed, looking disappointed and sad. "During the Elf Wars, Weil corrupted human leaders or tricked them into supporting him: he even had humans in his armies." Acting more as human shields than effective soldiers, although elf-enhanced ride armors were formidable. "He killed or used the dark elf to control and then kill all the effective reploid leaders as well, except for Zero and I. Then Zero had to seal himself away after the war due to compatibility problems with his replacement body. That left me."

He sat down on the bed next to her. "Neo Arcadia hasn't been falling apart because I'm gone. The generators, the fields, the factories: everything is still there." And X was still here. "It's been falling apart because everyone thinks that I'm gone. They think that no one can lead them except me. You and the other people of Neo Arcadia aren't helpless. You don't feel like you can't look after yourselves and shape your own destiny because it's true, you feel that way because you're afraid. I hoped that if I disappeared for awhile people would pull themselves together. Buckle down and start trying to build their own futures, the way they were before Weil. We're at peace. There's no need for everyone to be so afraid. I hoped that this would teach everyone to believe in themselves again, instead of me."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, bowing her head, unable to look at him. She'd failed him, hadn't she. "I was just like everyone else. I thought that you were the most important thing, and I could have been working on a generator and…" She'd entirely missed the point, everyone had.

"It's alright, Ciel. You're young. Most people though," he said, shaking his head. "Don't have that excuse. I should have waited a few more decades, I think. For your generation and the next to grow up, to have time to forget about Weil, about being betrayed by everyone around them." The savior elves turned to bringers of madness, humans fighting alongside… humans worse than mavericks, the birth of something worse than the virus: there had been no one to trust.

Except X.

"Look at me, Ciel." He tilted her chin up. "You could have done other, more productive things, but at least you did_ something_. Instead of blaming everyone else for things going wrong you made a plan to fix them. You used your own two hands to build what you thought would make the world a better place. And, actually, I think that you were right. It really was too soon. Neo Arcadia still needs me. But it also needs better power sources, a weather control system so radioactive dust doesn't get blown everywhere and more decontaminated arable land. There are projects that I need to work on, and you really do have some very good ideas for power generation. Copy-X is a good child, and it will be useful to have a body double to sit in meetings for me. Most of my time was taken up by public appearances and reassuring people by being there for every battle. Since he can reassure people that I've come back, everyone will calm down and things will go back to normal. Except that Neo Arcadia will have survived my 'absence,' and maybe people will have a little more confidence in themselves." Everything had turned out for the best. "Come on, cheer up. You did 'find me,' after all."

He smiled encouragingly and she tried not to blush or cry, just nod.

"Can you manage the rest of today, or do you need me to stand in for you? It's no trouble, I'm going to stay here for a few days helping your creation learn how to be a little more convincing."

She shook her head. "You shouldn't… I'll take care of it."

"Thank you, Ciel."

"You're welcome." After everything X had done for them, doing what she'd planned to already was nothing. He deserved so much more.

He nodded and stood up. Heading for the door, he paused. "Ciel? There's actually one more favor you could do me. I really am impressed with your work, especially for someone so young, but in future, please keep in mind that you need to pay attention to the little details. Harpuia wouldn't have called me back just for an imposter, he's fully capable of taking care of things like that himself, but he was a little worried because your copy had red eyes. Levi's fixing that now, but we're all very lucky that no one picked up on that. Can you imagine what would have happened if your oversight had convinced people that I'd gone maverick?"

She could.

It was one of those times she wished she didn't have such a vivid imagination. Neo Arcadia would have torn itself apart in panic.

And it would have been all her fault.

"Just pay more attention in future, alright? Don't worry, nothing happened. We're lucky that it's been so long since the virus was a threat. The world _is _at peace now. The only enemy left is fear, Ciel. Everything will be alright." He left, closing the door behind him.

* * *

"Well?" Harpuia asked when his proximity sensors went off.

Behind him, X turned back into Phantom. "Mission successful," he reported. If Phantom had been a less disciplined person, he might have gone into detail about how Ciel had swallowed his X impersonation hook, line and sinker, or tacked a 'Bwahahaha!' on the end there. The slight trace of smugness in his voice was Phantom's equivalent of doing an annoying touchdown dance. "It didn't even occur to her that her appearance wasn't generated by a cloaking device. Sitting down on the bed and several other details would have proved that X's appearance, on the other hand, wasn't a projection. I'll install listening devices in her new lab, but we shouldn't have any difficulties. She wanted to believe that I was X. The possibility of a newtype is unlikely to occur to her."

"And newtypes wouldn't have been able to use reploid copy chips to imitate humans or X." Actually, a scan of the appearance of a human or reploid couldbe loaded onto a chip. Merely mimicking the outward appearance wouldn't fool sensors or allow a newtype reploid to use their weaponry, so that had limited utility and wasn't common knowledge. It had been highly classified knowledge, in fact, since that ability had allowed Commander Axl to assume X's form and trick Weil into thinking he knew what X was up to while X was working on finding a way to revive Zero to fight Omega.

After Zero was revived and Axl was… no longer available, Phantom had been the one to act as X's body double, when X needed to be in two places at once. The Guardians hadn't so much considered that classified as a secret they would tell others over their dead bodies, because theoretically newtype reploids were extinct and building them was illegal, after Lumine and Redips. They weren't going to give away such a valuable capability or betray their brother.

"I need to get back to coordinating how we're going to play this. Since Fefnir's monitoring the net," how people were reacting to this, "instead of you, go help Leviathan get him ready for his appearance." Phantom was the expert on pretending to be X, after all. "We can only justify keeping him incommunicado by 'reporting to him' for so long."

Phantom nodded. Of course.

"Just keep Leviathan from putting too much fear of the four of us into him, the last thing we need is for Master X to appear nervous or frightened." Because _that _certainly wouldn't help public morale.

Copy-X was a hard worker, dedicated to doing his best and helping the people of Neo Arcadia. He could solve, just by listening, smiling and nodding, problems that had made Harpuia want to tear his hair out because he'd been approaching them like actual problems that he had to solve when all that was really necessary was for people to feel like their hands were being held. Harpuia was actually able to get enough sleep to limit his use of recharge capsules to one per week if he slept in the sunlight, and the construction of more shelters and workers allowed reploids to work in shifts and take time off for full sleep cycles, which improved the bottom line _and _morale.

Harpuia was the one who had to take the newbuilt in hand, obviously, lest he take after any of the others too much. Not that Leviathan was actually _serious_ about trying to convince him to be her little sister instead of brother, it was an old joke that Harpuia had never found funny and Phantom occasionally had.

Several years later, after Ciel had perfected her new energy source, they were finally able to have a _real _training exercise: week-long, full power & all maneuvers, squads against other squads with actual tactics instead of trying to find some desert monsters whose destruction justified the buster use but hopefully wouldn't kill rookies when they got panicked and froze. Obviously Copy-X needed to learn how to lead, since he _was _the theoretical supreme commander of the military forces and what if he got put on the spot? Harpuia got assigned as his assistant, supposedly, because it would look bad if Master X's force actually lost, training exercise or not.

That was when he noticed that Copy-X had actually gotten fairly good with that unwieldy flight mode of his over the years. That by this point he was really more of a family member than a figurehead. They'd missed X, and it had been natural to slot into place around him, each of them fulfilling their usual roles (strategist/fighter/tactician/bodyguard) and arguing their usual viewpoints, using the innocent newbuilt who still believed in happy endings to balance out their more cynical viewpoints and more vicious tactics.

That was something that X had lost over the years, and they'd had to watch him fall, grow more and more worn out, beaten down and reforged into a sword instead of what he had been, what he had been built to be.

This newbuilt, no, he couldn't call him that anymore, couldn't really be considered just a fake. Not anymore. Not when green eyes grew fierce with determination and his wings shone brightly in the sun as he dove down to assist one of their units, _his _men, the instant he saw that they were in trouble.


	2. In Place of a Name

_This chapter goes into how Copy-X would grow up differently here. For one thing, they're insulating him from the nightmare fuel as well as the stress. If they'd thought he was X, he wouldn't have been insulated. No, X was the one who got all of this dumped on him and was expected to be the pillar of strength._

_Part of Copy-X's thing in the game is that he sees humanity as entirely unable to protect itself from reploids, and reploids as unable to police themselves, either. Likely because he was trying to, and couldn't._

_Weil's tactics make a whole ton of very effective sense, actually. Now, from the death toll, it seems like reploids were the bigger victims in the Elf Wars, the conflict that made Neo Arcadia what it is. Think of those numbers in terms of how easy each species is to kill, Weil's goals and that, yes, there are fates worse than death. I think I'm going to mention that he created the Baby Elves, and leave it at that. If Ciel became the first human Copy-X knew/his defining image of them, and… Yeeeah._

_There's a rumor that some site in Japan says that the guardians and Cyber-Elf X are all split personalities that happened when X broke apart. This would be an interesting way to approach Zero series/good fic fodder. __For this, though, I'm going with the interpretation that they are individuals, X's children, turned on after the virus but before Weil's reveal. Oh, and they all got hit with massive trauma and PTSD, but that's the Elf Wars and Weil for you. _

* * *

X.

At the very beginning, the name really had been just a letter, a cipher, an empty thing. An empty place that Ciel needed him to fill because the one who should have had abandoned them, and because of that everyone was afraid, everyone was suffering. What he had known from the beginning was that X was someone who was _needed_. Someone noble and heroic but still, someone replaceable. Just the image of a hero. He'd wanted to do a better job, so Ciel wouldn't bite the inside of her lip with worry all the time.

At least he hadn't had very long to think that way, before the Guardians had taken him in.

He'd been only a few days old then, and their questions had overwhelmed him. Made X seem like this insanely complicated person that he could never be anything like at all. This big weight of history, made up of all these details and facts. Someone that he could never be like, since he was too young and simple and _stupid_.

It was while his head was still reeling from that, and he'd been half-panicked because he had to do this impossible thing or otherwise they'd change their minds about letting Ciel live that Phantom had put his hands on his shoulders (and he'd already taken the hint that Phantom wasn't someone who made physical contact a lot, unlike Leviathan and Fefnir) and met his eyes.

His expression had clearly said to calm down. Well, it was a little hard to calm down exactly when someone was looking directly into his eyes and not letting him look away, not to mention standing so close, but at least it had made him focus on wondering what Phantom was doing, what message he was trying to send.

"You care about Ciel, your builder. You want to help her, don't you? You want her to be safe, so she can go back to her lab, and bustle about inventing things. Happy just living her life the way she wishes to, excited by all the possibilities, and unafraid because nothing's going to go wrong. You want to be the reason nothing's going to go wrong for her. The reason she can be happy."

Speaking of Ciel like that should have been a threat, but Phantom's voice was too calm, and even, with a note there that he didn't recognize, not yet. Except for the fact that Phantom was just speaking the truth, and didn't want Ciel to be in danger either.

"Come here," Phantom said, after that had a few moments to sink in, and led him over to the window. "Look down."

He did, leaning forward, forearms and nose pressed against the glass.

"Look at all the people down there."

They were a little hard to make out at that distance, but he tried. He couldn't see a lot of details, though. They were all pressed together in this churning, excited mass, and he could guess why they were here.

"I'll tell you the most important thing about them: they're people. People just like you, and me, and Ciel. People with lives that they want to live, dreams and loved ones that they want to protect. They're all scared and overwhelmed sometimes, just like you feel right now. We just learn to hide it better as we get older. They all do bad things sometimes, sometimes because they don't know they're wrong, sometimes because they're afraid or twisted up inside, and sometimes because if they think that if they don't do that bad thing, something even worse will happen. Like you, and Ciel." Phantom paused, half to let him think about this and half because of his own thoughts. He would recognize that expression later as how people looked when they were remembering, but back then he didn't really have many memories of his own, so the idea of spending a lot of time reminiscing hadn't been one he could relate to.

He thought about what Phantom had said, and tried to think about the people down there that way. He really didn't have much knowledge of how people lived then, the wide variety of life, so he imagined lots of small humans sleeping in blanket nests under their desks in their labs so they could get to work first thing, before the ideas had a chance to escape, and lots of reploids being built and trying to help (yes, even Phantom was trying to help) and getting to stay with their creators, or being sent away to work. Lonely sometimes, frustrated sometimes, scared sometimes.

He was supposed to help them, that was what he was for.

"Just like us, and at the same time all different. They're still all just people. They're never just good, or just bad, although some people do come close. Do you want to help people? Not 'the people,' but people."

He nodded, still looking down, instead of saying anything or turning to Phantom, because it was a rhetorical question.

"Then keep in mind that they're all as different from each other as you are different from Ciel. They all want different things, have different dreams. You can't assume that you know what's best for them, you have to look at them, and listen. You have to try to understand. Because that's the one thing they _all _want, for someone to see them. For someone to care about them. So if you can do that, if you can remember that they are all people, if you can remember to care about them all, and show it the way that you showed that you cared about Ciel? If you can learn to listen, to treat what they have to say as just as important as what you have to say, remember their feelings are just like your own, that's the most important thing. It sounds easy, but it isn't. If you can just do that, then you'll have done more than enough. Although I doubt you'll be satisfied with that. X wasn't."

X? He'd thought they were talking about him. Hadn't Phantom just said that it was important to pay attention to people for who they were, and now Phantom was saying he should be just like X?

"When people tell you about X, they'll tell you about the legend. That he was built by Dr. Light, how strong he is, how he's a great warrior who beat all the bad guys." Phantom almost sounded a bit bitter about it. "But that's not why he was that strong, why he did all this. It's not why they love him. Everyone loves him because he loved them. Everyone felt like everything would turn out ok while he was in charge of Neo Arcadia because they knew that he cared about _them_ and would do his best, do everything he could."

"So you're telling me to be like X, and everything will be fine?" he said quietly.

There was one of those particular silences that he eventually learned meant that Phantom would be rolling his eyes if he was Harpuia or laughing at him if he was Levi. "Wait a minute, and I'll tell you why you shouldn't be like X. No, I'm talking about _you_. The one who Ciel made, the one who doesn't blame her because you know, even at this age, that helping people is the most important thing."

Those words…

"There, you see? That's what it's like when people see you. When people believe in you. Not a small thing, is it?"

No, it wasn't.

"X just… Well, he didn't really have a choice, he had to fight. Imagine if Ciel caught the maverick virus."

"She's a human."

"They go mad too."

"I'd… She wouldn't want to hurt anyone." No, Ciel wanted to make things better.

"You would have to stop her, because you love her and that's what she would have wanted. That's what happened to X, over and over. Until… You and Ciel both want to help the world. You don't have any idea yet of how different people are, but I'll tell you something that might give you some clue: I don't care about the world."

That made him turn to stare at Phantom. What? He hadn't thought that Phantom was a bad person.

"My mission is something else, and I'd kill you, kill Ciel, kill just about anyone and die happily if I had to, to accomplish that mission. I saw how X loved the world, and how much having to fight was hurting him. How much failing to save people was hurting him. I saw that it wasn't possible to save everyone or everything. So I decided to simply protect one single thing. To be his bodyguard, his loyal ninja, and protect him from what I could." Phantom looked resigned. "As much as he'd let me protect him."

"X."

Phantom nodded. "And what do you think of that?"

"He was your builder." He tried to think of it. "I can't imagine if Ciel kept getting herself hurt all the time."

"A lot of people are like that for their families, their work, like Ciel's generators, their friends… Or they've never thought about it and just do what their heart tells them, even when it's something like breaking into a medic dispensary because their son is sick and they want to believe that there's something that we could do that we aren't doing. Sometimes they're right, when there isn't enough to go around." Ah, family ties. Phantom knew how strong they were, and how convenient it was that most reploids didn't have any. People would do stupid things because they cared. "But, if they can believe that we really are doing our best, because the people at the top care about them? Then they'll wait, if they can, and work, and someday there will be enough again." Phantom had seen it, seen peace with his own eyes.

"So remember that even though they're people just like you, just putting yourself in their boots won't work, because they've got their own feelings and priorities, they're not an identical copy of you any more than you'd want to be a scientist if you'd been born as Ciel. You need to pay attention if you want to know how to help them." Phantom adjusted his wristguards with a hint of professional pride. "Or you could just ask me. Intelligence is my job around here. You'll know how to read people soon, just leave that to me."

"Thank you." He was really going to have help, wasn't he? Because Phantom thought he could learn to do a good job.

"For now, all you need to do is care about them. Just that. Because if you do, they'll know, and they'll rest easy, and they'll be thankful to you, and care about you in return. You, because you'll be the one sitting in on council meetings and hearing petitions and so on." Neo Arcadia's ad hoc legal system could be explained later. As could the fact that when people believed in a ruler, they expected the sun, moon and stars from him, so in many cases Neo Arcadians bitched not because they hated the government, but quite the opposite. No one would have dared complain if Weil had won. "And, really, and this is why I sent Leviathan out of the room, thank goodness."

"Thank goodness?"

"If you think that any of us want you to be just like X, then you're wrong. Very wrong. He was killing himself. He was breaking himself, trying to protect them no matter the cost to him. The last thing any of us would want is for you to turn out just like X. I'm glad that it's you here and not him, because I am tired of watching him suffer. We'll have to teach you how to fight, or rather they'll teach you how to fight, I'll teach you how to protect yourself, but you'll soon notice that the others won't want you to go out to handle attacks personally. Even though Leviathan and Fefnir will be trying to infect you with their particular brands of bloodlust. Even so, they'll jump all over you to nip it in the bud if you start expecting the impossible of yourself. You may look like X, but we all knew right away that you were not him, you were someone else. Your own person. Not only are we not expecting you to be him, we don't _want _you to be him. Not because he wasn't good enough," or any rubbish like that, "but we don't want anyone to have to deal with that."

Phantom looked at him sternly. "So now I'll give you my little speech, and you can expect to hear something similar from all the others: you are a newbuilt, you are not responsible for what happens. If this all blows up in our faces, we will take full responsibility, because we're the ones who know what we're doing. We will do everything in our power to protect you from having to kill anyone. If there's anything you can't do, and right now that's obviously practically everything, don't worry, we'll handle it. You had better not even _think_ about shouldering the weight of the world, because we saw what it did to our builder and the fact you look like him just makes it worse." Just brought up memories of what he had gone through. "In other words, don't be like X. We won't let you. And he'd be extremely disappointed in us."

And Phantom had been entirely right, both about what he had to do and what the others wanted.

* * *

It wasn't hard to be concerned about what had happened while X was gone, glad that people were alright, and if he was a little distant, thoughtful, they assumed it was some deep thought instead of listening to his com for advice. It was amazing how many problems could be solved just by sitting there listening, asking the questions they seemed to be asking themselves. Saying things like yes, of course it was difficult when something had broken down or there wasn't enough of it, and it really was impressive how they were managing, and why would they get in trouble for rerouting this other thing to carry the load? It was a good idea (according to the Maintenance people who always sat in on those petitions) and yes, he could make it a standing order that the other towers should do it too, if this situation arose again.

"If this is a court, then why aren't there any crimes?" he asked Harpuia, later.

"Diverting power from one of the sealed buildings is a serious matter. We don't know what's in half of them, except that it obviously must be important enough to justify the drain on the power grid, or at least someone thought so at some point." Harpuia said, frowning at the sky. "I'm going to have to have a _talk_ with weather management. Sketchy cloud cover is still cloud cover." And solar was already useless half the day without letting it get even worse. "Well, we haven't noticed any rampaging mechanaloids yet. Fefnir said it was just records." Fefnir had been greatly disappointed and _still _wanted to blow up the building. "My staff and Leviathan's are going through it to see if there's anything marked classified and then we'll let the researchers and press have at it." The governmental staff was too busy to do work that other people would do for them.

"Should I rescind the order?"

"X wouldn't have let anything really dangerous be kept near the city, and the rerouting only worked because it was close enough. No, better for them to be following an official policy that involves checking with us first instead of doing it on their own to who knows what."

"So it _was _a really serious crime, and that's why it was sent to me?"

"No, it was sent to you because it involved the welfare of Neo Arcadia. Regular crime is handled by… Oh no. We're going to have to teach you to check them, on top of everything else. You need to at least look like you know what you're doing." Wonderful.

"Check them?"

"X's approach to certain things was sometimes a little… interesting. Thank you for reminding me that we're going to have to personally search through the Elf War era records in that archive."

What was Harpuia talking about?

"What you don't know won't give you a headache. Well, I suppose it's worked, and no one was really in their right mind by the time the Elf Wars were over. Why couldn't he have cast his vote instead of abstaining, the rest would have fallen into line… I still can't _believe _the other three voted for that… Yes, I have to agree he deserved eternal torture, but…" Harpuia stalked off, looking remarkably like an extremely tetchy bird of prey, the kind in a mood to bite any unwary falconer's fingers off to send a message about their general displeasure instead of because fingers were tasty and idiots who thought there was such a thing as a tame falcon deserved what they got.

Sadly, the effort X had put into his emotional display and physical design was lost on them both. Harpuia had assumed that X always knew what he was thinking despite Harpuia's effort to cultivate a stoic, disciplined expression because X was X.

* * *

"Oh, you mean the Eight Gentle Judges," Leviathan told him the next evening, deleting any document that looked vaguely suspicious in a brisk, callous manner that would have drawn screams of anguish from any historian. She had a job to get back to, and it was hard to feel any sympathy for people who wanted to know about things she'd been there for and wished she could forget. "If Harpuia doesn't want to tell you, I'm not going to. The insanity is already spreading, and we don't want you to catch anything."

"They're maverick?"

"No, but good guess. I'm talking about the Elf Wars. Well, it's my fault. I forgot that the details of the Mother Elf project weren't classified back when I was turned on. It looks like this building was used as a time capsule for records: the system just kept dumping them here and no one with the classification who knew it was here had the time to go through and update the classification on anything." That would be why the security system had still been drawing a not inconsiderable amount of power. "I _told _him it was a female name, and he already looks enough like a female model but he still wants to use the male pronoun because it doesn't matter." Leviathan rolled her eyes. "If I've told Harpuia once, I've told him a hundred times that he needs to add some goddamn humans to his staff." Because otherwise his reploid staffers wouldn't know what they were talking about.

"Why doesn't he?"

"Because he still thinks he's air cav and doesn't want squishy people who can only handle a few Gs in his command structure. Back during the Elf Wars, we had to keep everything moving, even the clerks. If it needs air pressure or can't be dropped safely from a flying transport with a minimum of fuss, then Harpuia doesn't want to deal with replacing it if war breaks out. Or that's what he _says_, but I think he's just a big chicken."

"He's afraid of humans?"

"No, he's afraid of failing them. I think that's why he turned his unit into a specialized mobile strike force. Back then, Dr. Weil was killing almost everything he could get his hands on that didn't bow down and worship him. We _all _had towns, refugee camps, bases, you name it that we were trying to protect blown up from under us, slaughtered in front of us, nailed from orbit… Harpuia couldn't handle it, and that's why X let him take the easy job." She shrugged. "Don't tell him I said that. The casualties in his unit were, well, it was the Elf Wars. But at least they choose to be there. They got to go down fighting." She turned away from the screen to shake her finger at him. "Listen to your Big Sis, kid. Fighting is the best thing there is. Do you know why?"

"No. Why?"

"Because the opposite of fighting isn't peace, the opposite of fighting is _death_. There may or not be peace in the grave, but there's peace to be found in combat. Or all peace is created through fighting, whichever. Weil took people and treated them like things. His toys to break, and he smashed anything he felt like. He tried to make everything his. He was trying to destroy the very _idea _of resistance, of fighting back. Because, when people fought back, he lost. When people fought back, then even if they died, their lives and deaths were their own. You don't want to know what Weil did to prisoners, but while we were fighting, in those battles, we were alive and we were free. He could not take that away from us. So: never compromise, and never go down without a fight. Do whatever it takes to win. If someone challenges you, respect their decision, will and bravery, but it's their choice and their problem if they lose. Climb to victory, and don't count the bodies beneath your feet, it'll only make you sad and I've seen more than enough of that nonsense." They both knew she meant X. "Well, sad or boastful, they're both annoying."

"Harpuia doesn't think that way?" But Harpuia was a general too.

"No. He sees fighting as a chore." When he didn't recognize the word, she explained, "Something boring that you have to do. It's a necessary task, and something you need to get done, but it's still not anything fun."

"Like studying."

"Yes. Very much like studying." Levi banged her head on the desk. "Don't talk to me about studying, if you think Harpuia and Phantom are bad about it be glad you've never met X." He'd kept giving her books, or things would come up in conversation and oh yes, she needed to know about something that _nobody _knew about, except X and maybe some dusty old historians and researchers. Before Weil had killed them all, at least. At first the idea of trying to destroy all memory of a time before him, of such a thing as freedom had seemed ridiculous, especially to Levi, who had felt like she was drowning in trivia. He'd come so very close to pulling it off.

It made her finger hesitate, hovering over the delete button. "I'm going to have to read through these now, aren't I." Now that she'd thought of destroying knowledge as letting Weil win.

Speaking of Weil reminded her of the Eight Gentle Judges, humans, and Harpuia's issues. "Did anyone explain gender to you yet?"

"Humans have males and females. Reploids use he and she because the non-gendered pronoun it is only used for things, and all the attempts to come up with one for reploids sounded silly. He is the default, for people who don't have a preference."

"They sounded silly and they would have rubbed it in that we were different, alien, because for humans, gender is sometimes serious business. Short version: female models make stuff, male models break stuff. Culturally, there's all this stuff about what privileges each type has and what duties they have. Of course, nobody likes being shoved into boxes like that. For instance, there was a lot of stuff that you couldn't do in the female model box, so a lot of them wanted to go work in the male model box, and be treated just like the male models. Except, in the male model box, it was like our armies. We have to be tough on new members so we can see what they're made of. It's a really damn stupid idea to hand someone a gun unless you know what makes them lose it and what they'll do if they do. And you don't want someone watching your back unless you respect them and know that they're disciplined enough that they won't hang you out to dry the first time you have an argument. The word is hazing, but the female models didn't know this. These were fighters, too, so they didn't take it lying down. So they put up a fight about it, saying that it was unfair they weren't being treated like the male models. They missed the part about how, yes, male models _were _treated like this when they started out. And male models who bitched about it, the way they were, didn't get any respect _either_. On the other hand, neither did male models who took it lying down. I know I don't want doormats in my army. Still, if someone is easily provoked by small things, they're a weak link, and you need to force them to toughen up. So, the more they reacted, the more they got hazed."

"So when were they supposed to fight back?" And wasn't it unfair that they would be expected to know this?

"The instant it crossed the line." Obviously.

"What line?"

The line that Weil tried to nuke out of existence. "_The_ line. The one where you stand and fight." Leviathan turned her chair around and tapped one of the floor seams were two plates were joined together with her foot, indicating one side and then the other. "This is what I will put up with, for a good cause, and this is what I will never tolerate. Everyone has one, and you'll never understand them unless you know where it is. Some people draw them in really silly places. The line and what you do when someone crosses it shows what you're made of. Petty, insecure whiners can't stand stuff that people with a little self-esteem could handle calmly and real people, strong people, wouldn't even register." X hadn't cared about insults: she envied that strength.

"So people who were strong people _seemed _like insecure, petty whiners because they didn't know the rules." They all knew things weren't always as they seemed. "Respect is a big deal. Never give it to anyone who doesn't deserve it, and always expect as much as you have earned, no more, no less. When nobody's getting the proper respect, because it seems like everyone wants it and no one's willing to earn it, _nobody's happy_." And fighting happened. "Seems like the female models were being thin-skinned, right? _Except_ that by female box rules, those little hazing things weren't what people did to test people. A little embarrassment isn't a big deal, right? Or that was what the male models thought. Wrong. Because of the rules about what the people in each of the boxes were allowed to do, the people in each box were taught that different things were important, and the rules about who deserved respect were based around what made people good at the job of each box. Remember what I said female models did?"

"Made things?"

"Think about that. What do you need to make things?"

"You need power, raw materials, a place to make them, a place to store them, people to make them, you need to train the people, organize them…"

"The first two were male model jobs. See the difference? The female model job was a whole ton of constantly managing a whole ton of things and that required coordinating with other people. So, managing relationships with other people was _vital_. The vocabulary word here is 'street cred.' And don't tell me that's two words. Anyway, you have to have a certain amount of cred for people to deal with you, right? A lot of the things that people in the male box would do to haze were the kind of cred-killer that only got used in the female box if you were out to utterly annihilate somebody. Completely destroy their cred, make it so that no one in the network would deal with them, and so on. And _that _was well over the damn line. So they were not pleased that when they got in the male box, everybody was trying to destroy their ability to function there by using _incredibly _dirty tactics."

"They didn't know what was important to each other. Each model thought the other model was just like them." Instead of looking at them, making an effort to see them.

"Yeah. They thought it was just cosmetic, but remember the boxes. People in each box got told that different things were important."

"And people fight for what matters to them." And no one cared about the exact same things as anyone else. "Like respect."

"Exactly." She nodded. "Which is why I'm a female model and Harpuia isn't."

He would have asked what that had to do with anything, except she'd just explained that yes, it did actually matter.

"What, you thought I was the token woman? X built us both as female models. Harpies are mythical bird _women. _Harpuia was designed for weather control, that's why he uses beam sabers. X gave him weapons," of course, "but they're in his support unit. Another box rule, or the _reason _for the box rules, that became very important when Weil attacked, is that female models make things. Most importantly, they make the next generation of humans. The reason the human death toll was comparatively low was that Weil was out to _acquire_ female models, not kill them. He wanted subjects, after all. And the things he did..." No, she was _not _telling him this. Not so young. He'd have nightmares. _No one _should know things like this. That the reason the Elf Wars had only lowered the human population forty percent was that there had been replacements arranged. "Are the reasons genetic manipulation was legalized and Harpuia started identifying as a male model. At the same time, they're why I didn't." Someone had to be a role model. Someone had to fight. "And that's why it's really going to ruffle his feathers that someone thinks Elpis identifying as female doesn't matter," after what had happened to her, "and he doesn't think it's funny when I say that you should become a female model when we remodel you." When X came back. "I really am only half-kidding."

"Why did he become a male model?"

"It bothers humans less when male models go out and fight." Risk getting captured, and Weil had wanted X's children, both for the effect it would have on morale and to crack what X had done that let them fight off baby elves for a few, vital seconds. "Because male models aren't as valuable. The human population hasn't recovered yet, and a female model and a sperm bank can do everything a male model can do, _and _have babies. A male model is only risking their own life if they fight. A female model is risking not only her own life, but the lives of her potential children."

Harpuia got to liberate facilities. Strike from the sky like a thunderbolt and pretend that was the end of it. Oh no. Not even close. She doubted Harpuia had seen more than a few mothers search for their babies in order to smash their soft little skulls against the wall until blood and brains dispelled the illusion, the desperate hope that this would make them feel any less _unclean_. Harpuia hadn't had to try to break up the riots that resulted when that well-deserved, oh how well-deserved hatred of Weil and desire to wipe every trace of him from the face of the earth ran up against someone's insistence that Weil could die screaming, this was _her _child, not his! _Never his, _and if they _dared _say that again, if they _dared _lay a hand on _her _baby, she would kill them like they'd begged for!

"At this point, I'm probably supposed to tell you the moral that female humans, male humans, reploids who swagger like Fefnir, reploids who are gorgeous like me, reploids who don't give a damn like Phantom and people with the courage to wander around outside the boxes are all different but equal, but I'd be lying."

"So who do you think is best?"

"Fighters." Obviously.

"…but didn't the female models fighting instead of learning to understand cause a lot of trouble back then?"

Leviathan stared at him, until she realized why he'd asked such a stupid question. "People being _shoved into boxes _caused _that_." Obviously there was going to be trouble once people started trying something like that: humans didn't like people trying to order them around any more than reploids did. "The boxes kept people from understanding each other. Sometimes people need to learn to understand each other by fighting." One more thing it was good for: teaching people respect. She turned back to the screen. "I don't want you in Harpuia's office or mine until we're done sorting through this material. And stop asking people questions about the Elf Wars. They might tell you things." Like she just had.

* * *

Like Fefnir was willing to a few days later, despite the threat of Leviathan and Harpuia's wrath. "What were the Elf Wars like? What do you think they were like? They were hell, kid."

"What is it that Leviathan doesn't want me to know? Both of them."

"I wonder what Phantom thinks of all this? Nah, we won't find out until it's too late." Damn ninja. "Look, you've heard about the Maverick Wars, right? These days, it's just slang for criminal, or someone that's a little off in the head. Word for _that _used to be irregular. Back then, it was a virus, and you had to kill anyone who caught it. Wasn't anything else you could do. It took X and Zero a lot of work, but they managed to beat it back enough that people could finally work on a cure without signing their own death warrants."

"Zero?"

"How do you not know who Zero is?"

There was nothing he could say to that besides his… situation, which Fefnir knew.

"Ok, that needs to be fixed." And damn quick. "Anyway, the cure was the mother elf, Aurora Elpis, the one Harpuia's new punching bag named itself after." _That_ was fun, although Harpuia'd calm down and send it to Siberia or something before too much longer.

"Punching bag?"

"Nemmind." Nothing to tell the kid about. "That was when we were turned on. Peace, rebuilding, nothing to do but public works projects." And he had too many of those to do now. "Then Weil happened. X always said that there was good in everybody, but Weil? Is pure goddamn evil. He wanted to remake the world in his image. There was all this stuff about reploids not deserving peace, after what we'd caused humanity, as though _we _had anything to do with some damn virus that was written by a human…"

"I thought the origin of the virus was unknown."

"Only officially. Use your head. The virus showed up how long after the first reploid was built? You can stuff someone's head with science, but to be good at anything, to know how to be creative, you've got to _do _it. If the virus was that tough to beat, it wasn't made by someone who only touched a chemistry set a year ago. Human. Must have been. Who else was there? And," Fefnir added, after running a quick recheck of his security precautions. "X said 'he' once."

"Isn't that the default?"

"No, he said it like he knew what he was talking about and Zero knew, too. The Maverick Hunters must have figured it out at some point. Only so many people in the world, right? Even back then."

"And they didn't want anyone to know?"

"No one wanted to know. It was over and done with. You know the celebration when you came back? It was like that for _months_, when we were turned on. The real world was kind of a letdown." Then reality had set in with a _vengeance_. "Weil wanted to make everything his. _Especially _people's own minds. He used the baby elves to control reploids, he… Look. We're modular, humans aren't. Changing our appearance wasn't a big deal back then. Now, it's just an unnecessary expense. No one knows how to take over and rewrite a human's mind with a virus, but that just meant that Weil had to go with old-fashioned, primitive methods. The way to a human's mind is through their body. Humans can't turn off their pain sensors, for one thing. Look, if I told you what Levi thought would scar you for life, you wouldn't understand why it was that bad, not compared to screaming for days. But it was. You don't bomb a place where something like that happens to the ground, you bomb it until there's a _crater_. He knew _exactly _what he was doing. He understood people better than anyone but X, but they came at it from opposite sides. He may not have become a god, but he made himself the devil." No question. "I'm a simple reploid. Fighting Fefnir is who I am and what I do. But they were fighting for the soul of the world. X was trying to save it, and Weil was trying to shape it in his own image."

"But X won." Wasn't that right?

"It was a damn close thing. Still going on, really."

"What do you mean?"

"Weil got pretty far before we stopped him. Pretty far. There are still 'rogue' mechanaloids everywhere, we know we haven't found _everything_ he stored away for a rainy day, and Weil's still alive. X is, was, I guess, the only thing holding this place together. The only thing left to believe in besides Weil. What Weil did left scars, you have no idea how deep. Well, new generations are born and forged, people are forgetting about the nightmare. I don't know what Harpuia thinks he's doing. We should lock that archive up again and throw away the key." It was free publicity for Weil, and all publicity was good publicity. Reading about the wars would raise the specter of his name. Remind them that he was somewhere out there. "Nobody wants to think about it, but with X gone like this… We all know there's going to be a round two, except Harpuia."

What?!

"It was too easy. Not the war. Oh no. Capturing him. That stuff keeping him alive? This old enemy of X's father used robot doubles: X thought Weil might have done one better. Sure, we could maybe have found some way to kill him. Send that shuttle into the sun or something. But there are ways to cheat death, apparently, and X thinks he found one of them. At least this way we don't think we're safe. We know he's out there."

What a terrifying thought.

A large hand clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. That has to be the project X said he was working on. We've stopped him before and we'll stop him again." Fefnir paused. "And don't tell anyone what I just said about what X knew."

Huh? "Why?"

"Phantom isn't the only one in the family who knows the importance of intel. Harpuia's used to seeing everything from up there and Levi's a tactician: once the fog of war sets in everything's murky, and not just under the sea. Artillery, though? I can bomb _anything _off the map, but only if I know where it is. It's handy when people forget that I know that. Here's a piece of advice, kid: if you don't want people to make you do something, do it badly." Even if you weren't bad at all. If he did say so himself. He paused. "Kid… It makes sense. If we gave you a name, we'd use it, and then someone," aka Harpuia, who was too honest to watch his mouth, "would let it slip. Still ticks me off, though. Tell me you've picked something out, at least."

"Yes," he lied.

"Good, at least you know it. When X gets back, you can tell us." When he'd get a redesign. "I'll look forward to it." Still, it was irritating. "At least we won't let kid and boy slip, we're all used to Master X this and Master X that in public." As opposed to dad, old man, or even mother or mom if Phantom was amused, Harpuia annoyed, or Leviathan impressed. "The last thing we need is for you to start thinking of yourself as X like one of those crazy people. I'd miss having someone sane in the family." Took him way back.

* * *

_Before you think that Leviathan is 'only' being pro-women_, y_ou might want to look up Men Are The Expendable Gender._

_In the X series, humans aren't allowed in combat despite immunity to the virus. __The games treat that like it's 'human privilege,' sending reploids to fight and die for them, but can you honestly tell me that humans who lost their families to mavericks wouldn't want revenge? That humans wouldn't realize that sending more reploids out to get infected is going to result in more dead humans?_

_There would only be a complete absence of humans if humans were getting _forced _not to fight. _

_History shows that the results will be very, very bad for humanity. _

_U__nfortunately, ancient civilizations that kept women off the battlefield (no matter what the women wanted) could _annihilate_ civilizations that considered male lives just as valuable as female lives. __Because women were producers. Not just babies: homes were production centers, and training there meant the_ average _woman had valuable skills that took years to learn, while the average man was unskilled labor. __What happens when one civilization's resource base doesn't expand since it loses a lot of its experts, while the other's experts are accumulating more knowledge and moving up the tech tree?_

_Skilled labor is _effing important_, which is why Copy-X was doing so much damage to Neo Arcadia by eliminating all the reploid skilled labor. In canon, the humans being the only ones (left) with training and education just makes the historical parallel even worse for our species. The sheer economics of survival have a tendency to destroy human rights. _

___Wanting to defend your country and loved ones while female was often a death penalty offense, because women wanted to fight, they were too valuable to be allowed to do so and it took that much of a deterrent. Go look it up in the Bible. __You know the Disney movie _Mulan_? It's based on a true story, and the law at the time said that saving China while female called for immediate execution. She went to fight anyway._

_Just like humans would have tried to pose as reploids and join the Hunters, you know they would have. But when humans/women aren't allowed to fight, they don't win any victories, and if they don't win any victories, then people think, 'well, they just don't make good warriors,' and if that's true then it means they're inferior. _

_Membership in a society requires participation in a society. If half the population is shedding their blood for Neo Arcadia and the other half isn't, then which _deserves _the city? _

_With humans on the verge of extinction, it would be sadly easy for women to be labeled 'valuable breeding stock' that couldn't possibly be 'wasted' on saving other, less valuable people's lives. With only male volunteers in Neo Arcadian forces (and in canon, not even them!), they'd be a very small percentage of the armed forces. With no idea what to do with them, they'd be kept off the front lines, given no chances to prove themselves. And worse, the reploids sent out to fight and die would _resent _them for this. _

_Leviathan insisting that even the 'most valuable' segment of the population has the _right _to fight and die for Neo Arcadia, for not just human survival but human _and _reploid, means that humans are out on the front lines. Saving reploid lives. Becoming respected, considered equals. And since humans _do _have handicaps compared to reploids, that was only possible because special training programs were designed to make the most of human _advantages. _It's a major investment of resources, and it means that a lot of humans are dying in the line of duty, but it means that humans have _representation.

___History shows that Harpuia's desire to protect human life would, within a few decades, cause humans to be utterly disenfranchised and considered the inferior species_.


	3. No Answer To Give

Alouette is French for Lark. In a less twisted Neo Arcadia, she has led a less twisted life (or maybe not…), but I still wanted to find a way for her and Ciel to meet.

Weil turning the Mother Elf into the Dark Elf was obviously an incredible violation. A complete change of her identity, from hero to helpless victim/villain/tool. Harpuia was around when that happened. And this was the person whose name Elpizo took, specifically because it symbolized her and then acted as though something associated with it (the she) was his to strip away. The issue was a lack of respect for the personal identity and remaining self of someone who had lost so much. This was something calculated to really tick off a Knight Templar with that baggage, even done in total innocence. Too many memories. Of course, Elpizo honestly thought this was a minor issue of terminology because, as Levi mentioned, he hadn't really had a chance to meet humans and was painfully young.

It was really unfair of the others to let Harpuia go medieval on him (even with harsh words and punishment detail instead of retirement, in this universe), but they were all there for that too. From their perspective renaming, labels and ownership are serious business, so Elpizo got made an _example _of so others didn't make the same mistake.

Ah, yes, on Weil's character: it's entirely possible that certain lines were describing his Start of Darkness, and if _that _is what pissed him off, then those conditions wouldn't have applied until after the completion of the Mother Elf. Looked at that way, most of his actions fall in line with the Rage Against The Heavens trope, and it adds another layer to Weil's words and Zero's rebuttal on Ragnarok. I'm still thinking about how I want to handle Weil. I've got my AU Copy-X down - like the canon one, he's well-meaning and, well, young: unlike canon he's sane and has advisors/doesn't think it's all his job. Harpuia and Phantom are simple characters, I really just added backstory. Fefnir needs a bit more rounding out... But Weil's the main issue. I do like cosmic horror.

An evil that returns when the stars are aligned, Model W… Kind of appropriate for the man who created the Baby Elves, weaponizing reality warping, (the powers of the elves work by altering the code of the universe/reality warping) and used them to inflict madness. It's interesting when adding a sympathetic backstory to a character turns them not from Nightmare Fuel to tragic figure but Nightmare Fuel to Nightmare Fuel Unleaded.

Given that there are off-planet installations in Classic, a 'verse where the Cataclysm happened should give some thought as to what happened to them. Even if their masters went to help and were killed, there's probably still a lot of intact 20XX equipment there. Industrial, yes, so no superpowered armors or anything, but depending on what an author thinks happened to the tech level varying uses could be made of it.

* * *

Weil looked annoyed, then sighed with a familiar frustration. "You again… Reports of your demise were greatly exaggerated. Again. Are you competing with Zero's record?" It was another calculated insult, obviously. "You could at least have _pretended _to put some effort into deceiving me." Back in orbit for fifteen minutes, and he was already caught up in one of X's little puzzle distractions. What could _possibly _be more important than talking to him? The very fact that X was so obscenely pure-hearted and straightforward, so _simple_ made him difficult to predict, and the damn thing knew it. X would stand when anyone else would run, would balk at things that others would accept without thought, and this one was almost as alien. It was far too easy to waste time wondering what X was plotting when something seemed out of place, a strange turn of events, only to find that X had been following one straight track the entire time and was far ahead.

Normally, lies revealed more than the truth, because they were the inventions of someone's mind and truth was simply reality. X lied with subtlety and silence and simplicity that fit seamlessly into his usual simplicity: he made his enemies make assumptions, lie to themselves, and Weil was such a skilled liar, after all. He'd ended up playing mind game with himself while X finished resurrecting Zero. At least he knew this one didn't make plans, other than to confuse him at every turn, seize every opening the instant it appeared, move to exploit every mistake he made until the opportunity arose to fill him full of lead. Aside from that he was impossible to predict, so Weil didn't have to waste energy trying. Although he had managed to place a _few _chains on that free will, just as X had begun to show a few cracks, a few stains. "Or are you just out of practice? It's easy, isn't it, to fool all of the people all of the time when there aren't that many people."

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, and said, with calm, quiet anger, "Answer the question, Dr. Weil."

"I might if it wasn't so insulting. Orbit? I would have escaped from that within five years, and the real X knew that, which is why he teleported me well past the Oort Cloud with a starting velocity of .9c." That was still fairly impressive. "I was expecting something along those lines, but not that dramatic."

"You're the one not bothering to make an effort. We both know that if earth had that much energy, I wouldn't have unilaterally wasted it on you." Not when he'd had a planet to rebuild.

"Of course he did other things with it, the sea level, for… Oh? Are you really telling me that you're trying to keep it a secret? That no one _noticed_? How wonderful. I was starting to worry that with this much time, he might actually have succeeded in undoing some of my work." He leaned forward. "Did he even bother to offer a plausible explanation for why the atmosphere became safe to breathe unprotected again, or did it just happen gradually and no one thought to question it?" He smiled, sighing happily. "To think that I'd overlooked the potential of Dr. Light's work after so long dealing with debased copies. I thought he had nothing more to offer me. While nothing _does _compare to the ability to rewrite reality, I do have to give his work a more through examination." He looked back at the screen. "Speaking of which, what _is _X up to? Thank him for looking after my sheep for me, by the way. Such a good shepard."

Ah, Harpuia and Leviathan seemed to recognize what he was talking about. My my my, he hadn't even told _them_? "Ice from, oh, there are plenty of places to find it, and the atmospheric scrubbers that allowed the mining station on Venus to function, brought here by the teleportation network used by the offworld robot masters back in 20XX, which appears to have survived the Cataclysm. It took me forever to hook up to it, once I figured out how he'd done it, even with certain hardware at my disposal. I came close to giving up and trying to rig brakes a few times, but I persevered, and here we are." He smiled. "Does that answer your real question? 'How did I manage to break out of that orbit without detection,' indeed…" How boring. "As though that would have held me."

"And yet it did." X was unimpressed. "You flatter me." To flatter yourself.

"Deliberately playing a bad hand from the beginning, and you're still trying? Even if he didn't tell you, normally you'd have cut your losses and started treating this seriously by now." Spun a new plan, as it did every second. "If you don't, I could always start talking about my art collection. Did you get to see her one last time before she died? I was hoping you would."

"We buried them together. Now_ stop playing games_, Weil."

"Hmm…" That reaction. "Close, but not quite. You're mimicking him the way he was at the beginning. That anger, unable to understand while I would do something like this but still wanting to know, wanting the universe to be a place that cared about his justice. No, Axl, he did purely long for my destruction by the end. Or are you Axl? I wonder if you really _have _recovered enough? They say time heals all wounds." But he aimed to scar. "I wonder how long I could spend talking about a certain sculpture before you blew your cover again? But if you aren't Axl, that would simply be boring. The thing was just a reploid, I prefer to work with more valuable materials. There was only so much I could do with trash like that, but who am I to turn down a gift? Although I should have known how defective it was from the way it honestly thought it could sneak into _my base _undetected."

X bowed his head, clenching his fists. "Do you really think you can win like this?" he asked, eyes still closed. "With just yourself, a shuttle, and something thrown away long ago? Your baby elves are scattered and sealed, your Numbers are protected, and if I did have that teleport net, and was able to control it well enough to hide its existence, then I'm sure we can both think of a few things I could do with it. As far as I can see, there's no need to trouble Zero and Aurora with something like this."

"Oh, it's just you, Phantom. It must be all the interference." Normally his systems would see through a mere disguise, even over a channel. X was a very distinctive creature with distinctive readings, after all. "I should have realized, you always were too impressed with your acting skills." How promising. "You know nothing, do you? And that means that the power is all mine." If he really had hidden the truth so long, X must know the consequences of revealing it now.

He gave up. "If I say that I'm Phantom, will you answer me?"

"Hmm… No. No, you aren't Phantom. And you aren't afraid of me." Impressive, even if, "You're new, aren't you? It's not bravado, you know something of what you're dealing with. Still, X bringing fresh meat to my attention like this? How interesting. Either you're another creation of his, and he's given you some edge he think will save you from me, or…" Aha. "Or I've already won," he said, and _laughed_.

* * *

"Sorry," he said as he was hurried along.

"You did as well as could be expected." Better, really, and that was why he was in danger now. "Ciel is a direct biological descendant of the Dr. Ciel that worked on the Elpis Project. There is also a substantial physical resemblance, aside from her hair color." One of the genetic modifications one of her ancestors had requested. "Once Weil discovers her existence, she will be among his twenty highest priority targets." Likely among the first he'd seriously attempt to capture: of the others, he'd assume half the others would be easier than Phantom hoped they would be, and the other half Weil knew he'd have to handle cautiously, if he could even find them. "She is also one of our best researchers. There is a mission that will hopefully simultaneously ensure her safety and help our chances, but you would have to accompany her." Realizing the obvious question, Phantom added, after nudging the boy into his rooms, "As 'Copy-X,' not X. Or whatever you have decided to name yourself. I suppose that as your builder, she has the right to be the first to know it."

"And you'll be the second to know?" he tried to joke as he took the can of paint Phantom removed from a hidden compartment.

"Fourth. A communications blackout will be necessary, although since it is an outlying lab someone will be sent to monitor the area from it."

"Fourth?" He looked up from painting his boots.

"And you were doing so well earlier."

"We're looking for someone, and we'll need Ciel's skills and my identification? Ciel, the soldier, and you are three: the fourth has to be Aurora or Zero, unless it's this Axl person." Right?

"In a sense…" Well, no, he had no need to know. "Zero. Ciel's ancestor was responsible for the design of his current frame." The _design_, anyway. Zero's compatibility problems meant that it wasn't possible to manufacture a body that he could inhabit. Fortunately, there were other ways.

At least Cinnamon's death had been relatively humane. The baby elves involved in that attack hadn't realized there were any celebrities in the crowd that day. Weil had been _very _unhappy with them. Marino, on the other hand?

There were very few people at all resistant to either virus or elf control. Axl's immunity had been too valuable to risk. The choice had been between Phantom and Marino, and he'd been half-trained, if that. So there hadn't been a choice, had there?

They'd known the location was a trap, but they hadn't realized that it was a _special_ trap. The fake base had turned out to be the real one.

"He should awaken if you ask him to. Hopefully Ciel will be able to provide technical assistance if the machinery is too damaged. Because of the importance of its contents, the location was abandoned." As in, _abandoned_ abandoned. No covert power to the security grid, no casual fly-bys. Abandoned to the mercy of the weather and marauding mechanaloids for a century. Simply one among tens of thousands of old ruins and relics of one sort of another, the haystack left by a century and a half of war. "He may know where X put the Mother Elf."

"He may?"

"He sealed himself away very soon after they defeated Omega. It's _possible _that he did so as a seal on the Mother Elf, but not likely."

"So no one at all knows where the Mother Elf is?"

Phantom winced, realizing that he still hadn't gotten around to teaching the boy about the varying levels of trust and need-to-know. Well, only one category really mattered now. They weren't talking about bureaucratic infighting. "No one but X, and perhaps Zero. Of course no one else. During the Maverick Wars, Commander Signas wrote an interesting treatise on information control in that environment. There were effectively three categories: Immune, not immune, and human. He went into detail as to why resistance should not be treated as a factor, because the more it was, the higher priority the target, and resistance can be overcome. If the reploid were captured, for instance. It was a matter of likelihood of infection, and thus there was no effective difference. Humans, on the other hand, couldn't fall to the virus, but they could still be tricked, blackmailed, or occasionally bribed." As he spoke, he went to work on one of the boy's shoulders. A partial extension of his flight mode would alter his outline more than enough.

"Unlike the Maverick Hunters, however, the human side had an _extremely _effective counter-intelligence force, since they didn't get infected the day they were assigned to it. Cleared humans were almost certain not to leak information, even if captured, because the virus rendered mavericks who were not in stealth mode almost incapable of allowing a human at their mercy to live more than a few seconds. Calculated torture for information, as opposed to recreational torture, wasn't possible. For mavericks, at least. Sigma occasionally made use of mercenaries, like the infamous Dynamo," the monster who had felled Eurasia without the excuse of the virus, "for that purpose, but they were rarely effective. Despite what you might have seen in any of that wish-fulfillment trash Fefnir likes," apparently, a work being historical didn't necessary indicate any literary or other value whatsoever, like that _24,_ "torturing humans for information is neither quick nor easy, and there's a counter that works almost all the time, which everyone in Neo Arcadia knows." One of those little survival tricks ten-year-old humans knew.

"What is it?"

At first, Phantom considered rebuking him for curiosity at inappropriate moments, since they were reploids and it wasn't relevant. Then he remembered that this was Weil. "They tell lies. Many of them. Tell them one after another, tell them to themselves if they can't speak. Lie until they can't remember what the truth is, so when their mind breaks, the truth will simply be one among countless shards, and the truth almost always seems less realistic than a well-crafted lie."

The boy nodded, and Phantom knew better than to tell him that if Dr. Weil captured Ciel, he wouldn't be torturing her for information. "But your builder's, and your, best defenses are Zero and not getting captured. X had set up the system so that Neo Arcadia wouldn't track Phantom's teleports… Wait a minute.

Really.

In retrospect, yes, they _had _been very gullible. X hadn't even lied about anything, he'd just not mentioned things or not told the entire truth.

Maybe that was why it had worked.

Well, it shouldn't take that long. A fairly minor bit of surgery, really. He'd done more under worse conditions.

"Anyway, the point is…" he'd just thought about the old days and he'd been telling a long rambling bit of important information that he'd been sidetracked from because someone needed to be reassured.

He'd never felt so much like X in his life.

"Don't trust anyone, except X and Zero."

"Whenever he is."

"He'll come back." Of course. Even if it killed him. "Other people get… they can be taken away from you." The virus, the elves, Weil, death. "X won't be, and he said Zero is the same, and he would know. Find Zero, and you'll be alright." He patted the boy on the back, since it wasn't painted yet. "Finish getting painted up, and I'll be back with something to let you teleport without being tracked."

* * *

The first time he saw his creator in years, he actually didn't _see _her until too late.

"Oof!"

"I'm sorry!"

"You should be!"

Ciel waved for Passy to calm down as she got up. "Let's try this again," she said, and hugged him again, from the front this time.

"I'm sorry, Phantom trained me in what to do if someone attacked me from behind, and it was reflex." At least he'd pulled most of the blow, warned that something was wrong (or wasn't wrong?) by the fact his assailant was lighter and softer than they should be. Well, that and normally assassins grabbed people in order to stab them, or stabbed them and the body check was a side effect. These days Phantom generally elbowed him, at least, and then he was lectured about how he shouldn't have been that off-guard, and what had he been thinking wandering around the lower levels and letting Phantom's student tail him for an entire hour and a half without noticing anything? "Should you really be throwing yourself at strange reploids?"

"Your wing joint." She frowned up at him. "I know my own work."

Even after all these years? "You're taller." Right, he'd learned about this, and some of the staffers brought their children in. X had loved children, so the Guardians had needed to explain to him that behavior was cute in a five-year-old human that even a five-hour-old reploid would never get away with. The explanation that they started with some basic programming in how to learn things and then had to learn _everything_, even walking and talking, had actually given him a lot of fellow feeling for them, or maybe a bit of misery loving company. Especially when Harpuia and Phantom were competing (although Harpuia hadn't been aware that they were) to add the most to the list of books he had to read and skills he had to learn. Those children, he saw every so often, so he had time to adjust. Ciel? "The lab's still the same," but she'd completely changed.

"What do you mean?" Ciel looked around. Different projects, different equipment: even a different building.

"You've still got blankets under your desk."

Ciel felt like she had to defend herself somehow. "They're different blankets." What about him? Well, she'd seen him for the last time after his eyes had been fixed, although it had been in public and he'd been thoroughly chaperoned by the guardians. It had been to say goodbye, but they hadn't said goodbye because, well, that's not what would have been said if he was X and she had just come back with him. "You look the same. Except for the paint job." Of course. "How is the transformation working out?"

"It works. I've got more VTOL lift power than Harpuia, since he was designed with a support unit."

"VTOL?"

"Vertical Take Off and Landing."

"Well, I basically designed your seraph form to look, well. The thrusters are ok, I guess," for really old work, and artists and engineers were their own worst critics, "but I didn't even use a proper wind tunnel model program. I know your turning and everything is bad."

"Well, I do have thrusters." He could align them to compensate a bit.

"Yeah, but I bet you can't glide." Meaning that if anything went wrong in midair? Splat. Flying reploids always had that worry, but _Harpuia _could glide to a fairly safe landing, if he extended panels he normally kept tucked together since they were tougher that way. "I did a few sketches, and calculations, and I was trying to think of a way of sending them without…" Violating the effective restraining order. "And you probably don't want to see them anyway. I mean, you're in a lot better hands now." X's designs were so much better than hers, and he wouldn't have thrown a _person _together like that and made a fatal mistake like red eyes.

"I'd like to see them sometimes. There really hasn't been a chance for me to disappear long enough for bodywork, so I'm still using the same equipment, mostly. Phantom just replaced my teleport unit, but he didn't know if it would be safe to use this one to teleport you. It's a stealth model that's only been tested on reploids."

"Oh, right, now's really not the time. Sorry."

"No, it's alright. I'm happy, really." That she was excited to see him. "How far away are we?"

"Yeah, um…" Well, no, she didn't have the right to ask him to keep a secret. Not from X, of all people. "You know how I had X's frequencies, and energy signature, some of the identification codes and so on?"

"Well, yes." She'd used them to make him.

"I got them by hacking." Which was a serious crime, she knew. "I wanted to try to find X, so I looked for places where he might be. I didn't give up and start building you right away, I got all that stuff from his plans so I could try to scan for him and then, well…" Well. "Anyway, this was one of the two places I thought were the most likely."

"So we're near the ruin where Zero is?"

"Technically, we're in it. When I was given resources to establish a lab, I wondered why X came here so often, so I explored a lot more, and Passy found him way back in there."

"We found him."

"No, she did. I didn't have any idea that wasn't a solid wall." Passy deserved the credit. "So we found a reploid, and it took awhile to get anything from the system, but I fixed it up." It was probably really, really dusty in there now, wasn't it. "And we replaced the false wall and so on." After she'd blown it down in order to get in there.

"You didn't disturb him?"

"Well, I kind of nosed around in the support system because I was curious." Wanted to know what she'd found (although she'd guessed from the hair, really, and that was part of why she'd been so excited). "But I tried not to wake him up. The vitals are unchanged."

"I think that's bad." When she opened her mouth to apologize he shook his head. "Don't worry, it wouldn't be anything you did. And I think it was only one thing that was supposed to change, I have a list somewhere." The bag he carried hadn't so much been packed as become target practice, when they realized the strange teleport that had ended up a fair distance away from earth had been Weil's shuttle and tried to prepare for his arrival. If Weil had gained access to that teleport network, it hopefully wasn't very precise at all, judging from that. Unless he'd wanted them to tremble in fear of his coming. Or figured out what the problems were since then. "How far is it?"

"Actually, pretty far, but it's all underground and some of it's straight down."

"We should get started, then. Do you need me to carry any equipment for you?"

"No, I figured out what I could carry when I got the message. I'm sorry Cerveau's not here, but he got called up, since he's a researcher, and had to go back to Neo Arcadia." She was glad, since she was a target. "I was told that someone from Harpuia's army was going to arrive, but they haven't gotten here yet."

"Harpuia's?" But Phantom's unit knew how to act as bodyguards… Oh. Humans couldn't teleport. A flight-capable unit would have speed. "It's alright if we're not here when they get here." Harpuia wouldn't send anyone poorly briefed enough to panic.

The officer arrived when they were walking down a hall, and had the sense to call out ahead. "Hello? Dr. Ciel?"

"Yes?" Ciel called back nervously. A young female voice wasn't very reassuring to anyone who had read about Weil's Baby Elves and what they could do.

"I'm Lieutenant Lark, from the Rekku Army." A small female model with angel wings, not like Copy-X's but more cherubic, walked forward, hands up to show she hadn't formed a buster or drawn a weapon. Not that that covered all the bases, with reploids. "Harpuia sent me: did you get the message?"

"Neo Arcadia is sending officers to take control of all the outlying bases and residences to protect the inhabitants, if they choose not to return to the city, and monitor the area for activity." Ciel nodded.

"I'm sorry to intrude." She bowed cutely. "Are you the only ones here?"

"Well, there's me, this is Passy. Cerveau already left, and…" Ciel realized she didn't know what to call her creation.

"There's also myself, and there's another reploid who lives down here," he told the lieutenant.

"Alright." She nodded. "Do you need any help?"

"No, we're fine."

"Do I need any passcodes for the system?"

"The keycodes and my starter chips are on a ring under the potted plant on the table near the window."

"Alright, then I'll head up and start setting up the security," she said cheerfully, waving goodbye before dashing off. Well, that explained how she had caught up so fast.

"You don't know her?"

"No. Harpuia wouldn't have sent anyone who might recognize me as, well."

"Really? That's strange. Yes, there's mass reduction, but a child-sized reploid?" Especially a combat-capable one, and probably flight-capable? Lark had to be someone's project.

He shrugged. "I don't monitor research."

"What do you do all day? I hope it hasn't been too hard."

"No, I've got everyone's help. Mostly it's just meetings and petitions."

"Sounds boring."

"Not really. It's really pretty interesting. How everything in the city fits together." What made it all work, energy, buildings, people, hydroponics, transportation, medical…

He talked to his builder about his day for awhile, and it was like she was family too. She _was _family. Harpuia and everyone had adopted him, but Ciel had built him. Still, he couldn't tell her the truth. If people knew X was still missing?

How was he supposed to explain to Zero that yes, he was an imposter, but he wasn't an enemy without Ciel finding out that he couldn't just call the real X or bring Zero to him to tell him otherwise? He remembered the paint job and the wings and was relieved: even if he did have X's frequencies, Zero would have to realize that even if he had mimicked X, he couldn't be trying very hard to fool Zero. He should hopefully ask questions before jumping to the obvious conclusion.

The real problem was that the obvious conclusion, that he was a fake meant to fool people into thinking that he was X, was also the right one, and Ciel had built him to change his armor into another configuration because X had gotten new armors all the time, so the fact his armor didn't look like X's normal one didn't mean anything at all.

Phantom had said he'd be safe with Zero, but what about safe _from _Zero?


	4. Reader of Signs

_So, I have missed several updates on the two in-progress fics I was supposed to be working on, but I appear to be able to write for this one now, so here goes. I'd say it's pretty close to certain I won't be updating this weekly, though._

_I suppose that much of the point of this fic is a fixit for Harpuia as well as Copy-X. When the Guardians were counting on X to be the conscience and rein them in, and Copy-X was taking his cues from them, it only makes sense that they'd spiral down further and further. Knowing that X isn't there to be relied on stops the feedback loop, at minimum, but realizing that he has to be the one setting the moral example here forced him to be examining himself from day one. It's not that Copy-X was the morality pet and looking at him made them realize stuff was wrong, it's that not having X made them realize that they needed to start acting like adults and making their own moral choices, and having a kid there, in the position that they used to be in, really brought it home that they were not the kids anymore. _

_Child psychology and the transition to adulthood has always been something Zero series makes me think of. If anything, it's Ciel's Coming of Age story, even though she's pulled out of childhood kicking and screaming. She creates one replacement father-figure, goes looking for a second one, and eventually Zero dies and he's leaving everything to her. She's the next generation. It's her responsibility to build the future, not his. It's his to support her long enough to grow up and get there, but in the end, she is going to be on her own. She wants an adult to clean up her messes (like Copy-X), but eventually she has to face the fact that her life is her responsibility, not his problem. _

_Adulthood is more than self-reliance. Childhood is being looked after by others: adulthood is being the person that looks after others. In this 'verse, Ciel is more aware that she's the one that messed up Copy-X, even if the messing up was orders of magnitude less drastic, and 'X' _expected better of her_. 'Acknowledgement' is also an important part of that transition. _

_Of course, since she's still in the 'trying to prove herself' stage, she's acting more like a teenager than an adult right now in the fic, but she'll get there. She is a teenager, anyway (16ish), so what do you expect?_

_One issue delaying this chapter was that I had a choice of scenarios that would let me have my cake and eat it too, the trouble is that I had to choose a maximum of two out of three cakes. And going cakeless or teasing characters with the possibility of cake are also good plot mechanics. _

_Aside from general thoughts, the theme of the chapter is forebodings (ala Signs And Portents), and I shall end this 'DVD commentary' on that note._

* * *

Maybe it was his imagination that that the atmosphere became hushed and full of foreboding as soon as they entered Zero's chamber. He seemed to be the only one feeling that something momentous was about to occur, that almost stopped dead in his tracks at the entrance.

Ciel and Passy didn't seem to sense anything: they kept walking towards the console and the kneeling figure, suspended from a multitude of vaguely organic-seeming tubes as though this body of Zero was like the one that had been made into Omega, simply a component of some vaster beast.

Perhaps familiarity had removed any sense of awe at the presence of an ancient hero? He really doubted that they'd only been down here a few times. They seemed to know a little too much about what they were doing, and Phantom had been teaching him to fake that air of familiar competence when he didn't know what he was doing, which was most of the time. So he was pretty sure this was the real thing.

Honestly, how could they treat this place so lightly as to come down here just to gawk? They really didn't feel the chill in the air, the…

Wait a minute: that itself was suspicious.

Oh, he realized, triggering a couple of Phantom's scan functions. Signal dampeners, set up to isolate this area from the outside, and a few other tricks. No wonder Ciel and Passy hadn't reacted: Ciel wouldn't have felt a thing while Passy would have felt exactly what they were from the start, since she was an energy life form. It was only reploids that would barely feel the sudden shift and find it creepy.

Still, now that he was already on edge, it was hard not to be nervous. Since he hadn't known about Zero, Fefnir had taken great delight in telling him stories about exactly how dangerous the legendary hunter was. Even if this was an inferior copy body, seeing it slump there bonelessly, knowing that it would spring to life at some point and maybe attack him: Phantom would say that only a fool wouldn't be properly cautious. On top of the fact that there was a war on, after all. With _Weil_.

He wasn't scared out of his wits, and he was sure Ciel couldn't tell anything, and he was right to be scared, he thought, even if Fefnir wouldn't agree, but it still felt _strange _to be _this _scared. He hadn't been this scared before that conference with Weil, when he'd pretended to be X, and he should have been. All Zero would do was rip him to shreds, Weil would do much, much worse if he had his way.

So why was he so nervous?

Was it stage fright? No, he knew how stage fright felt, he thought as he pulled out the list and compared it to the readouts Ciel was pulling up. He wasn't going to imagine Zero or Ciel in their underwear, but that wouldn't make any difference. He knew how to handle stage fright, this wasn't stage fright. He wasn't even going to have to pretend to be X, well, not more than it took to fool the recognition software, anyway, and that was easy. If anything, it would be better to be himself.

Alright, that part might make him a little nervous, but not _this _nervous. And he certainly didn't want this mission to go wrong, but that should inspire caution, not this kind of fear.

It was like something was screaming at him for him to _get out of here_… Oh. _That _was what it was. Normally he didn't pay any attention to the threat indicator systems, since they were fairly useless, even if they _were _based on the most recent data from X's Ciel had been able to get. That was still outdated data and all of them had said that he needed to learn how to think and make his own assessments before he could be allowed to use the proximity alerts and so on, so they didn't become a crutch.

If X had fought beside Zero, then no wonder this system thought Zero was so powerful, and since Copy-X had thought of him as a potential enemy? Well, of course if Zero tried to kill him he was scrap metal.

Phantom had said that all true fear was fear of the unknown, since a threat that was understood could be planned for and overcome. Maybe that was why knowing why he'd felt that way made him feel so much better. Zero suddenly became far less scary, even if it was just subjective. Knowing that Zero was dangerous was different from feeling some 'hunch' that there was danger and needing to figure out why. Zero was still an incredibly dangerous reploid, but at least he wasn't occupying all of his attention, so he could scan for other dangers, even if the field that kept Zero hidden meant he couldn't get any data from very far outside the room. Even sound was muffled, of course. Using sonar to map caves was so ancient organic life did it.

They had Lark as an early warning system, so they should get at least a few seconds' notice, even if she was chased down here. Probably. Phantom would never let him get away with counting on something like that.

"Does everything look okay?" Ciel asked, looking over his arm at the sheet of plastic with the notes on it.

"It's that number that's important." He pointed to it. "It's not zero, but under five percent was supposed to be acceptable."

"It's barely under five." Ciel grimaced. "Is there anything we can do to lower it?"

"No."

"Are you sure?" Passy asked, and it was an offer.

"If it was over five, then there would be, but it's under five." The Guardians didn't sacrifice cyber elves lightly, he knew as he put the sheet away. So when he'd been told that they'd use cyber elves to adjust that number if it was over five, that meant it was _very _important. Still. It was under five, even if it was 4.981 percent. So he wasn't going to have to breathe in and force himself to tell Ciel's friend that yes, this was when she was needed. Needed to die.

"What does EER mean?" Ciel asked, frowning. She knew she'd seen the abbreviation EE somewhere before.

"I don't know," he said, shrugging a bit. They hadn't told him, but they'd been in a hurry. Speaking of which, "How should we start waking him up?"

Ciel and Passy looked at each other.

"I'll try asking him to wake up," he said, so that Passy wouldn't make another offer.

They would have sent a cyber elf with him if Passy wasn't here. He almost wished they had, as a backup, but a life was a life: it was wrong to want someone to die just so that Passy wouldn't. He should treat every elf's life as precious as Ciel's friend: if one was here, he might be too willing to sacrifice it, relieved that he didn't have to sacrifice 'the one that mattered.'

He didn't like to realize things like that about himself.

"I'm sorry, there's… I don't have any idea where to start trying to hack this system. Not without equipment I don't have." It wasn't just banned equipment, but precious equipment that was held back, and Ciel could get more than almost anyone else, as their most precious researcher.

"Have you tried?"

"Not… seriously," Ciel admitted, and it was like pulling teeth. She didn't want to lie to him, but she'd been ordered not to. "I tried to do a little investigating."

"Did you find anything?"

"It's war-era technology," she told him with a grimace. "The security's impressive even for that. They _really _didn't want him woken up early, forget tampering. Even new tricks didn't work on it: I think X updated the security when he visited." There wasn't a date... "He wasn't supposed to wake up before that number reached zero?"

"That makes sense." It had been obvious that it was the important thing. "Well, here goes." What to say? If there was a password, something only X would have said, then he was out of luck, what with not being X. He should at least say something that wasn't something X _wouldn't _have said. It was obvious that it wouldn't wake Zero up just hearing his voice, otherwise it would already have happened.

What would X say?

He wouldn't give Zero an order, he was almost certain.

X was 'Master X' to the city, to those who half-bowed before him to show their respect, because he at least needed to pretend he was in control. Someone had to be. So he would tell people what to do, so they knew what to do, what to do so things would be okay. Orders in urgent situations or the battlefield, so people could snap and get to it, orders couched as polite requests or suggestions that would still make people go, "Yes, Sir," or, "Of course, Master X," and bend their necks the rest of the time.

Not with family, he hadn't been like that. On the battlefield, he'd treated them like everyone else, because he was the experienced commander and if they didn't do what he said people were going to die, perhaps even them, but at home, where he hadn't had to pretend? He'd been tired.

And this was his friend. This was the person he'd relied on, Fefnir had said. When things got bad enough. They could have revived Zero to fight Weil at any time, even with his original body stolen, if they'd been willing to pay 'the price,' not that Fefnir had said what the price was. Still, if things ever got that bad, and Copy-X guessed they had, Zero had been there.

The very fact that X had been able to say, 'not yet,' that things weren't that bad yet, might have been a comfort. Or had he felt bad, that there was a weapon he wasn't deploying, when the war was so terrible?

He'd be ashamed, Copy-X realized. Ashamed he needed to ask someone to fight again. X had hated fighting, they'd all agreed on that. Even if Zero hadn't, even if Zero wouldn't mind, X wouldn't have wanted to do it. Wouldn't have wanted to wake him up until the problem, whatever it was, that he had to be asleep for was fixed.

But he'd know, Copy-X thought as he stepped forward. He'd know that Zero would answer. That was what Phantom had said, wasn't it? That Zero was someone who could be counted on. They were friends, they'd been friends for an unimaginably long time, so X wouldn't have any doubt Zero would answer his call.

Ciel moved closer to the monitor, watching it carefully since he was about to try something. Passy hovered between, moving as thought she was prepared to dart back and forth, to either of them that needed help. She was brighter than she'd been a few minutes ago: ready to discharge her energy. It would have bothered both of them if they'd noticed it, but they were too focused, Ciel on her observations and Copy-X on his task.

"I'm sorry," he said, putting his hand to the synthglass tube. "I'm sorry, Zero. Weil's returned," he told the sealed figure, a statement of facts, an explanation of why, in a resolved voice. "I need your help. We _have _to stop him," he said, with more determination than certainty there. "For good, this time." They had to, they _would_.

If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that it was that determination the capsule's energies (Zero's energies?) responded to, but even if it was reading his (X's) energy field, how could it read his emotions? He'd still felt it scanning him as soon as he was close enough to do significant damage, he still felt the hum when its systems began to wake up.

He still felt an override program kick in when that threat assessment program tried to bypass conscious function to authorize turning his body around, triggering his dash boots, and taking cover. Why would X assign such a high threat level to _Zero? _To his friend?

That was it. _That_ was what had been bugging him, all along. Even the defenses. They weren't just to keep intruders from finding this place, they were to keep something _in_. That might just be to make sure that that intruders couldn't escape? He tried to tell himself that even as Ciel gasped and Passy saw whatever she had seen.

Jumping back, but only far enough to place himself between Zero and Ciel (at least Fefnir wouldn't be embarrassed by how he was acting), he watched the cyber-elf give her life.

When Zero looked up at him, eyes blank and black, showing no sign of recognition, he didn't know if it had worked or not.

"Get down!"


	5. Those Who Protect

_And I thought there was no way I'd be updating this fic this week, but I should know better than to think I have any control over what I write anymore. In any case: Copy-X was built with a copy of X's hardware, but that doesn't mean that his software was set up for it. In this universe, the Guardians patched that as best they could, but… seasickness is an interesting metaphor, given what causes seasickness. _

_X does not experience any sort of 'bullet time' because he 'developed naturally' over hibernation and it's all integrated. He's an android ('human-like') and humans take in a lot more sensory data than we're aware of, and have all kinds of interesting data analysis going on constantly on autopilot. For instance, we have one of the better chemical analysis labs (aka senses of smell) out there (it's just that our best friends are one of the rare species with an even better one). _

_All of this probably contributed to Copy-X's identity crisis and other neuroses in canon. Compatibility problems, runtime environment… Ciel was trying to replicate X, but so was Dr. Cain, and she probably had her own good ideas. Although obviously Dr. Cain was not on Ciel's level._

_Or, actually, it would be fun to have an adult Ciel on _Dr. Wily's level. _Except sane. It would explain a few things about ZX tech. A difference between Drs. Light and Wily in the manga is roughly that Dr. Light is very good at what he does while Dr. Wily can do just about everything (including generators…). _

* * *

As he spun to face the entrance, his systems were already booting up normally dormant weapons and drives. Ancient decryption software suddenly informed him that it had compensated for the muffling field and he heard the sound of approaching mechanaloids.

Combat mode enabled.

These next few seconds were always the trickiest, as the world slowed around him. His thoughts might have sped up, but inertia and momentum were still inertia and momentum. Increasing his RAM and taking in more of the data that he normally blocked meant he had to sort that data, too, and not get bogged down in the information overload.

They were underground. It was a fairly large chamber, but still. _Underground_. And his flight mode was not exactly good at maneuvering in tight spaces. He wasn't Lark, who zipped right past him even as she shouted that warning, taking cover behind the console to get ready to return fire. He wasn't even Harpuia.

He could picture the debriefing (really critiquing) session in his head right now, even as he finished unlocking Seraph mode, big, unwieldy sheets of metal spreading out. Harpuia would give him a few well-chosen, glacially calm words that clearly conveyed that the only reason Harpuia wasn't asking what the hell he was thinking was that he clearly hadn't been.

By contrast Phantom, who had attempted to bang into his head, sometimes literally, that the best defense was to not get hit, and even better, not to be seen in the first place, wouldn't have needed to ask why Copy-X was making such a big, conspicuous target of himself even though obviously his objective should be to _stay alive_. Phantom understood protecting others.

It was simple. Every shot aimed at him was one that wasn't aimed at anyone else in the room. The shots that hit him weren't hitting Zero while his systems were trying to go through startup, and they weren't hitting Ciel.

A legendary hero could probably take some damage, and woozy or not a veteran's systems would be able to take cover even without conscious function, by 'instinct.' Ciel wasn't armored. Ciel was _human_.

Some of them were using actual metal bullets. So incredibly wasteful, the part of him that had been handling planning committees for all his life thought. The rest of him was realizing that while some energy weapons could rebound or be reflected, bullets that couldn't penetrate would almost always ricochet. Bullets that had lost most of their initial momentum wouldn't be very effective against reploid armor: this was an _anti-human _tactic.

There wasn't time to ask why Lark had come right down here, leading Weil's drones to them. She'd probably thought it was better than letting them get ambushed. Several of them were already battle-damaged: she must have at least tried to hold them off, even if they must have arrived before she'd had time to settle in and learn how to work Ciel's defense system.

Part of him wondered how Weil had known to attack this location so quickly. One possibility was that _everywhere _was getting hit this hard and this fast, but he'd rather discount that possibility, he thought as the first set of his sub-weapons finished charging and fired. So _slow, _they were already heading through the gap that was the entrance to this hidden chamber.

Fefnir would say he was doing the right thing, actually, getting out the big guns right away instead of waiting to transform like he was a video game boss. And what happened to video game bosses? Exactly.

Leviathan would reserve her judgment until she got to hear the entire fight, because that was the important thing. Not whether he followed the book or not but whether or not it worked.

There was barely any cover in this room, except him, the console, and the quickly-shredded remnants of Zero's capsule.

He _really _didn't like the look of those claws. Tagging the video feed for spectroscopic analysis revealed that there were industrial diamonds inlaid into them. Not monomolecular edges, but much easier to manufacture, lower tech, and better, or at least more reliable, for some things. The wealth of industrial applications were actually why he knew off the top of his head that those claws wouldn't have an _easy _time sawing through the alloy of his 'wings,' but they were certainly capable of it.

This was going to _hurt_, he thought, remembering the last time he'd thought that and wishing it was just one of Fefnir's missiles headed for him instead of six close-combat focused attack drones, with two more dedicated to providing cover fire and one med unit. All of them sleek and green-black, disturbingly organic.

Well, that was why combat experience was essential, wasn't it? He was supposed to think of it as just a drill. Just something he'd done before. Just something these systems, these programs had done before, Ciel's copies of X's hardware and best guesses at software bolstered by the Guardians' uploads of X's own combat files and analysis programs.

The trouble was that there was just so _much _of it. Normally he ignored most of this data because he just couldn't sort all of it at once: that was why he hadn't consciously noticed either of those alarms until they'd spooked him. He was a current-generation reploid, with an operating system designed for efficiency. Thinking took energy. X's systems, even just Ciel's best copy, were so _big_. Any sentient mind was high-level emulation and took up a lot of space, but unlocking all of this for combat mode just rubbed it in how _different _X must be. The guardians had copies of many of X's programs, and they'd patched him as best they could, which was why he was able to use any of this at all, but it made him feel tiny, insignificant, to know that the reason the world slowed to a crawl when he used this mode was because of how _tiny _his program was. All of these drives could easily run a dozen just like him, and their movement programming and sensory data and other software besides.

He didn't like combat mode. It was useless if he was ambushed anyway, and…

The reason he was letting himself kill time thinking of these things was that as hard as he tried to focus on the enemy, most of his body was paying attention to Zero. He thought he could take them, but if Weil had sent a dark elf along with them? He shouldn't have been able to make any in his prison, or find them so soon.

But apparently he had.

X had been immune to ELF control, and they'd tried to give him as many of those programs as they could, the ones X had written for them, but _something_ was sabotaging his e-tanks and reactor.

An instant after his charged missiles hit the charging mechanaloids, the thruster jets that kept him aloft cut out. He fell to the ground, knowing that he'd be easy prey for those claws and teeth. Or perhaps they wouldn't rip him apart… enough to kill him. Weil wanted him alive, _Ciel _alive, and that was what self-destruct was for, after all.

The others would never forgive him if he did that, even if they would understand. They'd blame themselves, but he was glad it wasn't necessary because, well, Zero was here.

Strange, he thought, as crimson, black and gold dashed past him, Zero moving almost in the same instant he realized how much trouble he was in, that he was going to need help. Maybe his systems had been too confused to properly recognize him before? He was a known quantity, to X. They'd fought side by side.

So it was ok, he thought, as Lark's charged shot took out the med unit. It was ok. Zero had resisted the dark elves, Fefnir had said so. Surely he'd still be immune, and Ciel should figure out why he was sick, so…

It was strange to feel safe, especially when he was watching his systems die and killer mechanaloids be ripped apart bare-handed. Strong, Zero was strong, wasn't he.

The legend, the hero, dusted his hands off before turning back to them. Those black eyes still didn't recognize him, but he felt calmer, somehow, seeing them, and switching out of combat mode, it seemed as though everything fell back into place.

There must have been some system error. A dark elf wouldn't get chased out of his systems by a _feeling_, of all things. By the way Zero stepped towards him, and he'd been in the presence of living legends before. The Guardians were heroes themselves, but they weren't X, that was why they needed him.

They weren't Zero, either. No one could possibly copy this presence. Was this how people felt when they bowed before him, before 'X?'

Those eyes measured him, and eventually he thought he saw faint approval, the tactician realizing why he'd done that, why he'd taken enough damage that even with his repair systems on overdrive it would be a minute until he could fold everything up and switch from seraph mode to his normal configuration.

It was only when Zero looked away that he was able to pay attention to the rest of the world again.

He turned around as Zero walked past him to see that Ciel was muttering under her breath, _extremely _annoyed, ignoring the sparks where enough bullets had hit the console to actually do some damage to just reach in there. Specialized work gloves or not, that wasn't _safe_.

"What are you doing?" Lark asked her, coming out from behind her cover and _this _close to pulling Ciel away.

"The level spiked up over five percent, that was why… Passy…" Ciel swallowed. "EER, what is EER, I _know _I've seen that somewhere, I _know_ it but I can't figure out what it means and…" Her left forearm was raised to her face and rubbed across it in a quick motion: Copy-X had never seen a human wipe away tears before, so he didn't recognize the movement. "I _won't let_, I _won't_!" Her voice trailed off and she swallowed again.

"Shouldn't Zero know?" Copy-X asked, almost certain that he was saying the wrong thing, because it was the obvious thing to do so there had to be a reason Ciel wasn't doing it.

"…Zero?" Lark straightened up, at first because of shock and then because he was looking at her. Humans had a tradition of naming people after other people, but reploids had never done that. Otherwise she would have thought that they couldn't possibly be talking about _the _Zero. That this couldn't possibly be _the _Zero that was walking towards her. "Um, ah, Commander Zero? Lieutenant Lark of the Rekku Army, at your service, sir!" As she said that, she automatically started to make an odd bow (a curtsey) but then came to her senses, overrode that old movement programming and snapped off a programming-perfect salute.

Zero seemed puzzled, more than anything, and she got more and more nervous as he stared at her, frowning slightly. No, she realized, he was looking at her wings. It was them that his right arm slowly reached out to, as he looked more and more puzzled.

"My wings, sir?" Did he recognize them? "General Phantom gave them to me, sir. He said that they were an heirloom." So if he was staring because he thought they looked familiar, they might be?

She really hoped he stopped staring at her soon. She hadn't wanted the ground to open her up and swallow her this much in years.

"I think I know them," he said finally, softly. When she didn't draw back, he took that as tacit permission to touch them. "I do." The sensory data was calling up matches, even if there was no context. He knew these wings, he knew the feeling of them in his hands but, "Do I know you?"

"Um, nossir. But General Phantom said that I sort of looked like the person that used to have these, so that was why he gave them to me." Her stiffness would have given away that this wasn't the only reason if any of those present had been good enough at reading people (or paying enough attention) to pick up on the signs.

"Phantom?" he asked, wondering who that was, wondering why she kept calling him sir… Wondering why he'd felt like he had to protect these people. She was right, he didn't know her, he didn't know any of them, but they felt familiar. It had felt right to protect them, to charge forward, even if he couldn't access that data. Even though he didn't like the undertone of hero worship in both of their eyes. There was also the human, but she hadn't looked at him.

Well, until now.

"EER… Something something recall? Expected Error Recall? Although that would work better as Expected Recall Error, and I _know _it's the EE I've seen before…" Ciel sat there thinking furiously because it was better than the alternative.

"Amnesia?" the other reploid asked, worried, as he finally got to his feet. One of the wing panels hung loose, still too damaged to be retracted, and there was a hint of pain in his face, under the determination, as he held it in place with his right hand.

That expression, that exact expression. 'I'm wounded, my performance is down (and it hurts) but I'm going to ignore it because people need me.' More than that. 'This is _bad_, I have no idea what I'm going to do, I don't want to do this, I don't want to be here, someone died and it is my fault, but I'm going to keep doing this because I _have _to, and I _won't_ show it because then they'll worry and I don't want to worry them.'

Only familiarity, Zero thought, could make him go from confused to exasperated in sixty milliseconds flat. Only familiarity could make him think it was okay to touch someone like he had that young female model's wings, or want to beat someone like an idiot student until they took a damn e-can instead of saving them for the wounded.

A few of the combat drones had been carrying energy pistols instead of using built-in ones so they could switch to using their claws when they came into melee range, he recalled. "Heal up and let's get moving. You can fill me in once we're at a secure location." He _hoped _this wasn't their idea of a secure location, he thought as he picked up and hefted the two sets of energy pistols he hadn't deliberately smashed to prevent another drone from picking them up and making use of them.

The young male model looked at the broken wing panel, clearly debating jettisoning it. Were they already out of e-cans or something? No, that had been a new paint job he'd been sporting when Zero woke up, he recalled. Even with the best repair systems, there was a difference between a repaired exterior and a shiny new paint job, even when it was an amateurish paint job. Or done in a hurry?

For some reason, a _black _paint job done in a hurry wasn't something he'd liked the idea of, but since only a quarter of the reploid's wing panels were repainted it was probably just a disguise. Disguising himself as what? Whatever Zero was remembering not liking, the kind of person that would give themselves a new paint job in menacing colors to try to be intimidating? Or was there more to it than that?

"Hey, you." Human.

"Yes?" The human finally looked up at him, only half paying attention, most of her mind focused on something else. Probably the problem of his memories, which was at least productive.

"This is an energy pistol. You point it in the direction of the target. It doesn't fire when you pull the trigger back, but when you release it." It was a common feature, to enable charging shots. "Try to fire from behind cover."

He raised an eyebrow when she took it from him correctly and turned over so that she was lying down, braced and making herself a smaller target. "Like this?" she asked, hitting one, two, three of the pieces of drone wreckage. Looking up, she told him that, "There was a law passed a few years ago: everyone in the wastes knows how to shoot, even humans."

As he opened his mouth to say something, pleasantly surprised that she wouldn't be entirely dead weight but wanting to make sure that she knew she was human, and therefore squishy, and he did not want any of 'his people' getting hurt because she thought she could fight like a reploid, he heard the female model say, "Please!"

A pulse of energy filled the air: not emp. Something else he knew. His generator had already restored the negligible amount of energy he'd used fighting the drones, but the male model was so shocked he practically jumped, staring at her as his e-tanks were filled to capacity.

"It's something the wings do," she explained, hurriedly. "They generate the power themselves. It's not that much of a waste of energy, really."

"Do you know how they work?" the young one asked her, amazed. "Something like that…"

She shook her head. "It's lost technology, and General Phantom says there isn't enough of the metal it uses to be useful, even if it wasn't."

"…Oh." Of course there wasn't. Phantom might like his secrets, but he wouldn't hold something back that would help Neo Arcadia, Copy-X knew. Wait, metal?

"Are you talking about force metal?" Ciel asked, getting to her feet.

Zero instantly pegged her as a scientist, and his assessment of her went from 'maybe not all that much of a liability' to 'surprisingly non-useless.' Although the survival programming of scientists often left much to be desired. "If you can talk, you can move. I'll scout ahead." Because one of them was a human, one of them was a rookie with good intentions and a hero complex, and one of them was a healer, meaning he'd need her to keep the second one intact.

"…Surely not," Copy-X told her as he obediently waited a few seconds for Zero to get ahead of them before following. "Phantom wouldn't just hand something like that out." Anything like that would be kept under lock and key. Even if this was one of his students. That would explain why she'd been sent here: she'd be the perfect compromise candidate. One of Harpuia's own army, so he'd know her training was up to snuff (not to mention flight-capable), one of Phantom's students, so he'd know the same. The fact she was a female model with a hidden secret weapon that could turn the tide of battle would convince the other two not to send their own people, just to be sure.

Force metal dust was a necessary component for catalyzing the formation of dark elves. It had something to do with why they were capable of generating their own energy, holding multiple charges and recharging themselves instead of dying. The way Passy just had. He could tell that had occurred to Ciel. She was his builder: he _knew _her, 'I just had an idea and I want to take that apart because I can do it so much better,' look. It had generally ended up with him on a lab table partially dissected.

"Of course not," Lark assured him. "He said it was called Bassinium."

Up ahead, Zero's fragmented internal dictionary, which hadn't responded to force metal, did throw up a line item response to Bassinium, more properly known as Fortinium, even if the main article was inaccessible. What was accessible was that it was cross-referenced to force metal, although he couldn't open that article, either.

A corner of his mouth tilted up as he tested motor functions by spinning his 'borrowed' energy pistols. He had no idea who this Phantom was, but he liked them already.

* * *

_The stages of grief are interesting. Ciel is currently in between denial, anger and bargaining, coupled with 'the engineer's approach to problem-solving.' The fairly common borderline-subconscious thought process is along the lines of 'Passy died to solve this problem, so if I can/could have solved this problem, Passy wouldn't have died/won't be dead.' This is why people sometimes like to believe that they're at fault when something goes wrong, because if whatever it was happened because they did something bad, then all they would have done/would have to do to fix it is do it differently. The trouble sets in when logic points out that no matter what Ciel does now, it's not going to bring Passy back to life. Although my Cielmuse's reaction to that thought was, 'Forget that, there's cyberspace, remember?' so she might just figure out a way to do it. _

_The fic is not Phantom/Alouette. He just has this tendency to adopt people. Like one of Weil's Numbers… Since Ciel was out of town in this universe._

_Even though he was woken up properly instead of his containment/body basically being short-circuited/hard reset by Passy, Zero's memory is still going to be a mess in this universe for other reasons. By the way, Axl will not be waking up anytime soon in this fic. Weil was out to destroy the three heroes, after all. While Axl is extremely resistant to Hannibal Lectures and attempts to Break the Cutie, _Weil got X_. Weil succeeded where Wily, Sigma & Lumine epically failed. _

_Incidently, something very, very Bad-with-a-capital-B happened in this chapter. Let me know if you spotted it, even though I tried not to give it away to people who have read my other stuff by muddying the waters quite a bit._


	6. Those Bearing Hope

Meanwhile, in Neo Arcadia… In which the fic remembers that Harpuia is the other main character. – _Or that was the intended content of this chapter, but writer's block is a bitch._

_Is it wrong that part of me wants to make this a crackfic solely because Leviathanmuse wants to do her own version of the Major's, "Gentlemen, I love war," speech from _Hellsing_? _

_Not that there isn't a bit in the way of cracky underpinnings to the fic. In my defense, real life is just that ridiculous sometimes. And Flint and Ringo do way, way more ridiculous incorporations of pop culture. Still, I'm pretty sure it_ is_ wrong that My Little Pony: FIM has been added to the list of fusion fics I want to do solely for the sake of the reference to Robot Unicorn Attack. It's a good metaphor!_

_A lot of Ar Tonelico music works as a soundtrack for Zero series. This is the thing that always makes me think of Chronicle Key. Why does power reside in and cause such pain to kind people who don't want to hurt anyone? It's a lullabye, but not one that's going to make anyone happy. Reisha's lullaby in AT2 is also incredibly depressing._

_Also, a lot of the true horror in cosmic horror is that it's… Not exactly _brainbreaking_, but rather that it goes against the logical framework that we use to make sense out of the universe. There has to be_ a_ logic there, but to accept it would mean, for example, that the universe is an uncaring place and humankind and all its efforts mean absolutely nothing, which was very traumatic for people raised thinking that they had souls and were loved by God and these were absolute truths. 'If that's true, then there's no point in living.' On the other hand, for someone raised thinking that God is about as likely and irrelevant as a giant purple teapot orbiting Pluto, discoveries like those in Lovecraft's stories would be interesting instead of a reason to commit suicide. _

_This is inescapable because, "I reject your reality and substitute my own," is why we can have the nice things, like civilization and something hard to distinguish from peace (in the same way parents can pass for Santa Claus). A world where people did not believe in and try to do the impossible would be a very terrible place. As well as one with fewer presents._

* * *

It was beautiful, this place.

Still, that wasn't saying much. It should have been beautiful, given what was sacrificed to make it so, and why. Of course, the same could be said of Earth itself, and it was far from beautiful, she knew without having to see it. She'd seen what was left of it, and not enough time had passed for it to heal. Barely enough time had passed for anything at all, it was still too soon.

Not that _he _would give them time.

If she was fully awake, if she weren't asleep/here, she would probably be panicking, back in that same state of mindless terror where she was capable of nothing but struggles, equally frenzied and useless, beating her wings against Omega's clenched fist, and obeying the orders forced into her mind/energies, flinching and screaming soundlessly and please anything, let it stop.

All the hibernation in the world wouldn't give her the will to resist Omega's power or Weil's programming if she couldn't _think_ to use it, if the mere thought of _him_ turned her back into that panicked, betrayed child, unable to understand what was happening, why her creator had done this to her, a world's screams echoing in her ears even though she didn't _have _any.

Sometimes she really did think that even nonexistence wouldn't protect her against _him_, against Weil, and wasn't that the simple truth? She couldn't die any more than the one they'd made her from could. She'd tried it often enough. Weil had compelled her to strain herself, exhaust herself until she died often enough.

What good was it to have a system that evolved if all it meant was that the more she was abused, the more she was strained, the faster she came back to life, the more minds she could ensnare and _break_?

Falling into bright crystal shards.

So beautiful, so terrible. Just like this place. Because she knew what it meant, that he had been able to do this for her. If he hadn't broken, he wouldn't have been able to hide her. To help her recover. He should have been strong, he was legendary for being impossible to corrupt, his systems without any security flaws, and what was she but a flaw?

Even his projection of himself was hazed and indistinct, even in his own mind. Bright rainbow static when once there had been faded _strength _that she hadn't even been able to tell was faded at the time, when they'd used him as a control subject to test her ability to enter reploid minds in order to fix them, and she'd never been able to manage it.

The surface had been worn away, and she'd seen it brighten once peace came, but it was only when it shattered that she could see what once must have been. The heart that steel strength, that steel taint, had sheltered.

The laughter made her _ache_, but there was nothing she could do. Oh, she could have said something, tried to comfort him, but what good would it do? She was no good, only a tool, only… No, no, she must not think that way, that was letting _him_ win and she _knew _that.

She was only aware of the laughter because she was in a part of his mind she wasn't supposed to be. He couldn't keep her out, and she knew that he wouldn't have wanted to burden her with this. She wouldn't have known he was suffering, well, suffering more than usual if she hadn't come here. It wasn't as though she had sneaked in: he could still tell where she was and what she was doing, even if he couldn't do anything about it half the time.

She would have felt better if he'd scolded her for it, but she'd felt his regard and felt him think that there was no use. That defending his privacy, his own mind, simply wasn't worth the effort of thinking a few words at her.

It made her feel sick. Well, slightly more sick than usual.

Would saying something, maybe asking what was wrong, make the laughter stop? Or would it make him laugh harder, at the sheer ridiculousness of the question?

After all, what _wasn't _wrong?

The most terrible thing – no, she couldn't even call it that, could she. Not when she remembered Weil. In any sane universe, before, it would have been unthinkable, worldshattering, impossible. Something that simply could not be (because, Axl would have said, if it could be then they were all kind of screwed). Her mind wanted to reject the data, but it was reality, so she had to deal with the fact that the laughter was bright.

That beautiful, poisonous, deadly happiness. She could feel it wear away at her, and that was quite nice, really, even if killing her would defeat the entire point of this.

Was it just that he was in such despair that it warped around to the other side and became happiness, laughter at the ridiculousness of it all? Because it couldn't be real.

Or had something made him truly happy, some part of whatever had hurt him this time?

She'd thought that exposure to Dr. Weil, after he'd changed, and Omega would have let her understand insanity, but if it were understandable, would it have been insane? Or was it all the same?

Wasn't it an inability to accept reality that had driven Weil to this, just like X? The only difference was that Weil couldn't stand the world, so he was willing to destroy it to force into a sane shape, a _fair_ shape. And X? If the world wouldn't change, he was willing to let it break him.

"_I don't mind_."

She knew. That just made it worse.

That was why she hadn't tried to fight this, tried to get out of here before what he'd done to help her finished killing him.

Because she understood wanting to die.

And, perhaps, because she didn't want Weil to see him like this. That monster, her maker, had seen her broken. And she'd seen him break, and had no idea that anything of interest had occurred until years later, in nightmarishly clear hindsight. In that light, she knew exactly what it would mean to him to know that this had happened to X.

It would mean that _justice had been done_.

She'd kill X herself before she let Weil see him like this, she'd vowed to herself, and X knew it. Because the world, everything was already broken, and for someone to see this, hear this laughter, and think that it was _good _and _right _would… She couldn't bear the thought of it.

Well, that was Weil for you.

"_It's alright_," X thought, with one of the channels he knew she was spying on.

It was a lie, it was not alright, what part of this was alright? Yet some part of her couldn't help but be comforted, which was just more proof that it hadn't worked, had it? Hibernation was supposed to strengthen a personality, and she was still so divided against herself. She knew what it was supposed to do, she saw the remnants of it all around her, she could see it in X's memories. He might have tried to give her what Dr. Light had given him, but she was no Lightbot, now was she? Bastard offspring of the worst excess of Dr. Wily's madness and the poison lurking in Weil's heart, soon to surface.

His laughter redoubled, and she was right. That was _happiness_, and it made her vibrate/shiver.

"_That doesn't matter. Do you know what just happened?" _he wondered, directed at her.

"_No._" She hadn't looked into the memory, because she owed him some privacy and she was fairly sure she didn't want to know.

"_It's nothing you haven't seen before." _In his memories. _"Nothing I haven't done before." _And that was why it was so sad. So pathetic, that he had trouble with something so pedestrian, so everyday? "_Zero woke up, I got the alert and since I was fairly sure _I _hadn't woken him up… I wanted to help him," _X said, turning to smile at her. "_I thought, because it was Zero… That I could just help, without, without doing anything terrible. Because Zero has never had trouble killing. He had trouble with the fact he _didn't _have trouble, but that's entirely different. I understand that now, I really do_," he said, and laughed. "_I thought that I could just help him, and not be drawn into the fight and realize afterward that I'd done something terrible. And still not care. I thought I could fight without becoming a monster, because… Because Zero. I can't believe I… I thought he was a talisman, a crutch, the way they think of me. He is, he is a hero even if he'd never admit it, he always has warded off the dark, but…"_

Zero was the dark, Elpis might have said, just like her. So there was nothing in it to terrify him. Just like she hadn't been afraid of the virus. She hadn't been afraid of anything, until Weil had remedied that.

"_You can't rely on someone else's strength. Not when it's strength of the heart. You know why I did this." _

She knew several reasons, although she knew there were probably more. Trying to strengthen her, trying to strengthen Neo Arcadia by letting it fall apart and learn to pull itself back together before Weil returned to smash it, and…

"_It's not even something I can blame on Weil. It used to be my job, as a Maverick Hunter. So I just did it, or tried to. I didn't even hesitate. Zero would have been proud of me." _

"_You killed someone?" _The terrible thing was, X's reluctance to kill was as alien to her as Weil's warped idea of what justice meant. As the Dark Elf, she'd killed millions of people, and that wasn't the part that bothered her. It was one of the few things she didn't hate herself for: when Zero had used her power to cure the survivors, their minds had merged, around the edges, and she'd seen that he was the same way. He fundamentally did not care and could not care. That was how he'd been made and she'd inherited that programming. Dr. Wily had put quite a bit of work into making sure he wouldn't care, perhaps to keep him from being crushed by guilt. It hadn't kept him from _deciding _to care, deciding to use his ability to kill for the sake of the world.

She could feel sympathy for the pain it caused him, but she would never feel that particular pain herself, just echos from the minds of others.

"_I tried to kill an innocent child, and the only thing I regret is that I didn't succeed,_" he said, smiling ruefully. "_My father would be devastated, if he knew how far his last child, his last hope, had fallen. If there was anything left of him." _He shook his head, still smiling_. "And now his sacrifice is undone. Without a guardian, Weil was able to use Omega to take control of the last of the network once. I had to order it to self-destruct so he couldn't do it again. Well, at least all his knowledge was gone from it." _The knowledge of X's systems the Light AI had used to make his armors hadn't fallen into Weil's hands. What he'd done with his knowledge of Dr. Wily's technology was bad enough.

"_You haven't…" _

"_Dr. Wily is a genius,_" X said, interrupting her, "_But I really don't think he's right about that. How does the fact we're poisoning each other prove I'm still good? By that logic, you and Zero would be irredeemably evil, and even he didn't believe that, since Zero was intended for more than destruction_." Zero. Even though X knew Zero's return wouldn't just make everything better, thinking of his friend still gave him a little happiness. "_At least there's no way he can sense either of us. Unlike Zero. It appears I miscalculated." _

"_He's still a carrier? Well, that might be a good thing?" _As much as X probably hated her saying it. A baby elf would have to fight the virus in order to take over an maverick. It would actually be harder for Weil to take control of a maverick than a formerly free reploid. And a maverick would actually prioritize Weil's forces… except he'd helped crack the targeting algorithms, so he'd probably do something to make his army seem like a lower priority as soon as he realized the virus was out there again.

"_I assumed it was the virus. It wasn't."_

Her avatar's eyes widened. "_Oh?" _

"_Axl's systems were designed to destroy control programming." _Specifically, and especially, the Maverick Virus. "_The virus is gone."_

"…_So you're upset that you assumed the worst and almost killed someone?" _Even though she could access a few channels, X was so old and deep he was very hard to read. Other reploids were simple by comparison, simplified versions of his design that had been streamlined to increase their efficiency.

If he'd thought it was the virus, another Sigma, than hadn't he made the right choice? Like Repliforce. Nipping a new plague, a new war, in the bud. That was why he'd said Zero, his instructor, would be proud, she thought.

"_No, I'm not upset_." And that was the problem. "_If anything, I'm happy with this outcome. I hadn't thought of this, and it's a relief, really. It's just that it shouldn't be._" He shook his head, and she felt him laugh at himself. _"As long as Zero's alright_." Other than that, he just couldn't care anymore. He'd made other friends, over the years, and they all died. He'd finally learned to stop making friends, stop letting himself get attached, and then he'd realized that this wasn't a good thing only too late. He'd _let_ himself stop caring about those who could be turned into enemies. He'd lost and he _deserved _it, for being so stupid. So selfish, feeling his own pain and forgetting theirs.

She was silent, realizing that she had no idea what he meant by all this for a reason. He was deliberately keeping some aspect of this away from her. Whatever it was that had affected him when yet another potential wartime death wasn't a really big deal. As for the virus, it had been cured once. By her, in fact.

If he didn't want her to know, she decided, she didn't want to know. She already knew too many terrible things. So, "_How long do you think we have?_"

"_I have no idea_," he mused, almost cheerfully, and the mindscape became orderly for a moment as tactical scenarios and training were called up and whirled around them, eclipsing darker, more chaotic musings and memories. "_It's all in Zero's hands now_."

He closed his eyes, which meant he was trying to stop thinking, and most reploids would have stopped and gone into drowsy power save mode at that. X didn't work that way. He didn't go into sleep mode, he hibernated. When he was awake he tried to deal with the world, and when he slept his systems, and mind, tried to optimize and repair itself. To grow.

Since he'd let her trick his systems into thinking she was a part of him, she could take advantage of that. Let his infinite potential system help herself and her own system try to destroy and grow around everything Weil had done.

She was using system resources he might have used to come to terms with what Weil had done. Except X didn't want to.

Back when Weil had been her father and Ar Ciel had been her mother, the two of them had given her an ebook called _The Giving Tree _one day. She wondered, now, if Weil had been the one to pick it out. If he'd been thinking of X's destruction, even then.

X was going to let her, let the world, use him up. Just like Dr. Light had. He'd lost piece after piece of himself, trying to win peace for the world, and if peace wasn't possible? He simply did not want to live in a world like that, it was not possible for him to give up. So he would kill himself trying to make it possible. She knew that. She'd seen it, in his mind. There was no other way for him: to choose another path would have been to cease to be X, and he could not be anything other than himself. That was the cost of his strength, after all. Everything had a price.

She was going to let him do it. She'd decided that when she'd agreed to this, even though she had second thoughts every night. Although she hadn't realized that part at the time. She'd just wanted someone to hide her from Weil. Like this, their energies cancelled each other out and Omega couldn't sense either of them.

At some point X would die, and then she'd have to do something.

X had never asked her to fight Weil. X would never ask that of her. He hoped she would be strong enough to, but he'd hoped for many things, over the centuries.

She'd been a hero once. It had been easy, she'd just done what she'd been designed to do. That wasn't the same as knowingly setting out to do the impossible, after watching it break someone a thousand times stronger than she would ever be.

She went to sleep, focusing on getting stronger, and very deliberately did not think about the fact that there was someone else she could take refuge with.

* * *

_On hope, in the Ancient Greek sense: You know the saying that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result (for instance, banging your head into a wall repeatedly and thinking that this time, you'll get into Platform Nine & Three Quarters) is the definition of insanity? _

_Pandora's Box was a curse, of the entrapment variety. She opened it the first time, she unleashed a bunch of evils. Then, she was stupid enough to open it a second time, after all the suffering the first time caused, and what came out? Hope. Hope was not a consolation prize, or something Zeus put in there because he was having an OOC moment and decided to be less of a vengeful bastard than usual. It was the worst of the evils in there. Because, without hope, people would learn from their mistakes. If something caused them to suffer an evil, they wouldn't do that thing a second time. With 'hope,' hope springs eternal, and people keep doing stuff that will get them hurt._

_So naming the person they hoped would free them from the reoccurring cycle of the robot rebellions and virus wars 'hope' in Greek was really just asking for it. Of course, that doesn't answer the question of whether or not Weil was evil all along. This isn't common knowledge now, and so much knowledge may have been lost that X was the only one who would have had a prayer of realizing that they might as well have named her schmuck bait._


	7. Uncut Red Wire

_On the Resistance members: They're awesome._

_The games basically treat them as 'Ciel's followers/hangers-on, Red to Mauve Shirts that are totally helpless without Zero,' and the only time any of them seriously disagrees with Ciel, this is treated as evidence they're in the wrong, even though I think they were right and Ciel was carrying an Idiot Ball at the time._

_The title and theme of this fic is that a reploid was supposed to be a replica of/equal to X. In the game series, reploids are generally painted as helpless victims. They never get to inherit X or Zero's infinite potential, they're always helpless masses for the player character to use the power of the ancients to save._

_This irritates me. _

_In any case, the Resistance members were exceptional people with the makings of heroes. In canon, Copy-X and the guardians were killing the smart, capable reploids. In a more sensible world, you promote people like that. _

* * *

Colbor scanned the screen, checking to make sure that the autocomplete software had actually filled in all the blanks correctly. Since it had, he hit enter and the computer ejected the reploid's id card into his waiting hand.

Normally the next part involved more of a ceremony, but since it was wartime, he just stuck the card into another machine that added the official purple stamp with its own built-in computer chip and handed it back to the applicant. "Through that door," he said, even though the entire flow process was clearly marked. Civilians. Well, ex-civilians at this point. They'd be formally inducted and impressed with the honor and responsibility of being a member of the Zan'ei Army once the upgrading was done.

The really sad thing was that he'd been forced to reject half the sensible applicants so far. Older reploids, like himself, had jury-rigged systems with plenty of corners cut, thanks to the energy shortage. Try to upgrade them in a hurry, and there was too much risk of medical complications. Complications the engineering teams didn't have time for right now, even if the General, magnificent underhanded bastard that he was, had managed to grab Dr. Ciel's own research partner.

Thanks to Dr. Ciel's generators, they could build them better nowadays. The younger the reploid, the more robust their systems, the better the quality check process and the emptier their brains. The only army whose new personnel didn't need to be extensively upgraded in order to do their jobs was the Jin'en, and if now was the time for interservice rivalry it would have galled him a more than a little to send, oh, someone who had five years experience scouting the wastelands and avoiding their hazards to _Fefnir_. Normally he'd have cheerfully gone on quarter energy rations during all his time off-shift for a_ month_ to find a trainee like that for the General.

Well, they had always been the smallest of the armies. Quality over quantity.

When he looked up next to see a rather good facsimile of a human female he was actually rather hopeful he'd found a good candidate until his upgraded optics informed him that no, it actually was a human female, and no, there was no possibility that the individual in question was just a reploid that was really good at modifying their systems to fool people.

Pity.

"We're not accepting human applicants right now," he said, and looked down again at the logistics paperwork on the tablet he had open on his lap. "If you still want to volunteer, the Meikai Army is on the other side of the building."

"You're rejecting human applications?" she asked. "At a time like this?"

"Yes, we are, _because_ it's a time like this. I'm sorry, but you people take too long to train. We've also been forced to reject several reploid applicants for similar reasons." Most of his attention was taken up by his tablet. Wait, what? When had the general requisitioned half their supply of timed homing mines?

"Can I quote you on that?"

Surprised, he looked up. She had the sense to already have her ID card, kept on a cord around her neck, held out so he could see the stamps. "Neige with AAN. I'm not here for an interview," she said, putting it away.

That was a good thing, because otherwise he would have called someone to haul her off and invoke whatever disciplinary measures were appropriate. They had an office for handling nosy people that pressed you with questions (was that why they were called The Press?) nowadays, since Master X had let a bunch of volunteers mostly take over the City Alert Network, which was now Arcadian News Network. He was a little busy here, just like everyone else. So what _was _she doing here, he wondered. "Are you here to apply for protective custody?" Wasn't someone handling that? Someone that wasn't him?

"Not exactly."

"She's with me," said the reploid that had been standing beside her until she'd pushed forward to examine Colbor and his setup.

"ID card." Colbor held out his hand for it. It was one count against the applicant that he didn't already have it out. There were signs at the front of the line.

Well, having it in an accessible pocket that he could get at as soon as Neige let go of his hand was good enough. Better than having it inserted in their systems somewhere under their armor. The cards were designed to interface like that, for medical monitoring purposes. And energy consumption records.

Hmm. Craft. If he believed in good omens, a name like that was one. Craftiness was a good trait in his General's army. According to this, he'd been built before that time Master X had vanished, so he'd been around the block. _Nice _agility for a civilian, someone had kept upgrading him several times over the past few years, and he'd gotten just about every standard upgrade as soon as they'd become legal, once the additional energy started to come in. A good custom optical system, paid for by ANN. Registered as Neige's cameraman…

And her domestic partner, with the right to stand as parent to her future children, although she hadn't had any yet.

Oh, _cancer_. He winced in sympathy before looking up at the both of them. "I can't guarantee assignments."

"Reploids don't take as long to train," Craft said, reminding Colbor of his own words. "And someone has to protect her."

They were known for making exceptions, too. He knew what the general would say. "She's a reporter. A fertile human female, under twenty, who hasn't carried any children yet. The two of you haven't had the domestic partnership records wiped?"

"We're not going to," Neige insisted, taking Craft's hand again. "And yes, we've gone over all the declassified information."

In other words, yes, she knew exactly how many risk categories she was in. Exactly what she was letting herself in for. Colbor had first heard of 'reporters' a few years before Master X's decree, when they'd war gamed out an invasion by 'Dr. Vile.' That was obviously a pseudonym for Weil, in hindsight. Apparently he really didn't like them.

Colbor looked up at Craft. "She's going to need a lot more protection than just you." He ejected Craft's ID card and held it out to him. "You're applying to the wrong army."

"What?"

"The Jin'en army is in the left wing. I'll have someone escort you directly to Anubis." Who would never let him live this down, provided they both survived to go for drinks when all this was over and done.

"But you can't…" Neige started to protest, and Colbor could tell that she'd opened her mouth half because if she hadn't protested, _Craft_ would have, and humans could get away with mouthing off to colonels and causing a scene in a military building, in the midst of lots of concerned soldiers with busters while a reploid would get taken down first and asked questions later. "This is a call for volunteers, you can't just conscript someone from a priority service!"

Heads turned towards the shouting, but once they saw the origin, no one did anything but eavesdrop. The people that wrote useless things like, oh, Neige herself, could say it was racism all they liked, but the fact remained that a human throwing a tantrum couldn't do a tenth the damage an irregular with their logic chips fried, much less a maverick, could do in a crowded place. Not to mention that reploids could generally survive being shot first and questioned later, while nobody wanted to be responsible for accidently killing a human. Even if you just stunned them, a bad fall could kill them if you were unlucky. Even without spikes.

The General only let humans into his army because if _his _people were getting shot at, they were doing it wrong. Not to mention that humans had quite a few advantages when it came to stealth. For one thing, they were lighter than any reploid would ever be, more agile than all but a handful, like the general himself, and they had some very nice sensory systems once they were taught how to use them.

Maybe it was just because he'd been her partner for several years, but acting to in time to keep Craft from yelling at a colonel and as good as shooting himself in the foot proved Neige had good situational awareness.

Colbor let himself consider conscripting_ her_ for a few moments, before ruefully acknowledging that since all their experienced officers were needed, they _really _didn't have anyone free to give a human the training they needed. Not to mention that he _had _read the official directive from Master X himself about the ancient tradition of a free press and encouraging the people of Neo Arcadia to learn more about their city and their future and so on. He could probably still conscript her, but the general would make him put her back.

Even though she would be safer if she were conscripted.

Much, much safer.

He could ask for their ID cards back and annul their civil partnership from this station. It would only take a minute. It was the Zan'ei Army's job, his duty, to keep the people of Neo Arcadia safe from the shadows. They didn't have to like it. They could file a complaint now that Master X had set up a system for that, but it wasn't like anyone would have the energy to care until this was over, at which point restoring it would be a non-issue, either way.

Still, because he was Zan'ei, and they did things _quietly_, he didn't argue with the human but looked directly at Craft. "Could you use her as bait, to lure the enemy into a position where you can ambush them without putting her at risk?" he asked him, voice calm and gaze even. "Could you hold an energy pistol to her head and say that you'll kill her before you'll hand her over? That trick never works unless you mean it. Could you let drones carry her off in order to wait for an opportunity to extract her safely, knowing that opening might never come? Could you surrender and let Weil have her if a firefight would get your principal killed?" He frowned, because Craft should know this already, if he was in information services. If he thought he was qualified to protect anyone. "Understand this: if she looks directly at a multicharged shot without eye protection, she could be blinded for life. A standard tactic used for disorienting enemy forces will explode her eardrums, and yes, blood does get everywhere." Even if the amount of bleeding in old movies was generally exaggerated.

He leaned back, optics never leaving Craft's. "Let me tell you one of the things we learn on the first day: _heroics get people killed_. The two of you love each other. You want to be heroes, or else you'd do the sensible thing and take your relationship out of our system. You'd sacrifice yourself to save her life? Think she'd be happy about that?" He tilted his head in Neige's direction meaningfully. "Do you want _her _to sacrifice herself to save _your_ life? No? _Then don't give her the opportunity_. Because if you go into a fight willing to die, generally that's what happens." He nodded, slow and stern. "Jin'en Army. If you have to fight, fight them before they get here. If I have to, I'll conscript you now. Before you two get each other killed."

The two of them turned towards each other without quite looking _at _each other. He'd prefer to watch them come to a decision and make his own decision, but, "Think about it. You're holding up the line." He waved them to the side and started composing a message to Anubis, asking her to have someone conscript Craft if he didn't do the smart thing and sign up within 48 hours. At this rate, he was going to owe the mutos reploid enough energy for her to get wasted and reenact that _Thriller _movie again.

* * *

"Phantom? Get me Harpuia," Fefnir growled over the com, abusing the fact he could get away with rudeness to his siblings. Well, unless it was Leviathan and he planned to ever be near a body of water ever again.

"That may be difficult," Phantom responded.

"Why?" And why hadn't Phantom turned on visual?

"I believe the best description of Harpuia's current status is the idiom 'trussed up like a turkey.'"

Harpuia pointedly ignored that, trying to sort through various multicolored wires. He could have _sworn _he'd wrapped these up neatly before shoving them in a box under his bed. Of course, after that he'd given up his bedroom and someone had moved the box of cords, as well as the rest of his non-essential possessions, to a warehouse somewhere. If he ever found out who had gone through his stuff and was responsible for this mess, he was going to run them through and pin them to a wall. Not with his swords obviously, they were expensive precision equipment. Maybe with a rusty girder.

It was a good thing Harpuia wasn't actually hooked up to anything yet, since Phantom's comment hadn't helped. The room smelled like ozone, like the air before a thunderstorm. Honestly, Harpuia's anger was half with himself. He hadn't been immature enough to spit sparks when he got mad in… he couldn't remember the last time he'd wasted energy like this.

Of course, the reason his old memory files were a little incomplete was connected to the reason he was having this problem with his powers. For this, he'd had to charge himself up _all _the way. Reactivate _everything_. While Fefnir had been able to keep himself topped off with the occasional lava bath and who knew about Phantom, he and Leviathan had used only the bare minimum of power during the lean years. He was electrocuting paperwork tablets and Leviathan was breathing frost - the two of them had almost forgotten what it was like, to have their true power at their fingertips.

They'd almost forgotten what they really were, what they had been built for.

This would be much easier if he could take off his winged helmet and most of his armor, since the cords kept getting caught on the protrusions and angles, but half the systems and all but one of the ports he needed were built into his armor, so that wasn't practical.

This would be completely unnecessary if he hadn't spent all these decades starving himself. If he hadn't been running on a bare handful of drives and only now reactivated the ones that dealt with this. These cords were the equivalent of training wheels. He'd grown out of them, what, a handful of months after he'd been turned on? But right now, he needed the limitations they imposed.

And the surge protectors. Especially the surge protectors. Because it wasn't the cords he was truly angry at, they were merely an obstacle. If he hooked up to Valkyrie before he remembered how to keep his anger at Weil from activating his weapon systems and creating stray electricity, he'd microwave the poor support unit.

"Harpuia!" Fefnir roared. "Leviathan's looted half my bouncing betties! Make her give them back!"

Phantom switched the call to his personal com as Harpuia ignored Fefnir. "Ah, that."

"The two of you are up to something, aren't you." It was Fefnir that stated the obvious, because it was clear their brother wasn't going to give them any more information until someone played straight man, and Harpuia wasn't in the mood.

"I guarantee you will like the results."

Both Fefnir and Harpuia paused at that.

"…Al_right_." Fefnir's usual growl became half-purr, because their rivalry aside, he had great respect for his sister's tastes in mayhem, and if even _Phantom_, who normally disapproved of big and flashy on principal because it was part of his entire stealthy persona, was signing off on it, then it was going to be _effective _mayhem. Involving mass quantities of munitions. If he didn't know better, he'd think his activation day had come early this year. "I'll be looking forward to it."

Harpuia decided he didn't want to know, since if they were keeping something so expensive a secret right now, it was something they didn't want Weil to know about. A second after Fefnir signed off the distant barrage resumed: Fefnir was taking a page from their father's tactical manual and clearing his lines of sight around Neo Arcadia by blowing up any obstructions. Obviously X had flattened the surrounding land before building the city here, but after so many years of habitation people had built shacks, dumped garbage and otherwise cluttered up the landscape.

The dust kicked up had already proven its effectiveness at preventing stealth units from taking the land route in.

Everything in him was on edge, feeling that a storm was coming, although of course he wouldn't say something so ridiculous. The storm was already here: only a fool would wait for Weil to make a massive strike and act like everything before that didn't matter.

"Are you sure?" Phantom asked him again.

"I have more control than Leviathan." Who he'd ordered to stay at least a hundred kilometers outside of the city until she'd gone berserk twice, so he was sure they at least had an effective damage estimate. "I won't activate anything important until I'm in the stratosphere. I'm not a fool, Phantom."

"You aren't the same as back then, either."

"True," he acknowledged. "But I would never harm Neo Arcadia."

With a nod of acknowledgement, Phantom resumed his silent watch.

Harpuia would have demanded that Phantom actually help with the cables instead of just stand there inwardly laughing at his predicament, but Phantom didn't know which cable went where and it would take longer if Harpuia split his attention trying to tell him which magenta cable to put in which blue port.

* * *

_The plotline with Neige & Craft also irritated me. The Men Are The Expendable Gender trope is often gag-inducing. Also pretty illogical. When two brave people are willing to put themselves in danger to help the other, and one is specifically described as helpless a lot, which one is more likely to survive? The one with body armor, obviously, not the damsel in distress. Of course, Neige had a gun, implying that there was a bit more to her than that._

_Someone commented that the entire plot of Zero series is riddled with Idiot Balls, and I certainly have to agree. If I were Neige, I might have grabbed Craft's and beaten him unconscious with it, then dragged him into her cave /tent encampment. Seriously, her reaction to that should have been, "Craft, you ass! How could you do this to me?" Because you don't try to dig up and report on the truth in someplace like Neo Arcadia unless you've got balls and aren't willing to swallow bullshit like that even if it kills you._

_Not the last we'll be seeing of these two, because, well, they might try to be sensible, but they're brave, young and in love. They're really not going to be able to stop trying to look out for each other, even if I hope this will turn out better for them than canon did. _


	8. Ceto's Overture

_While in most mythologies if you want to fight a god you need to either be a god or be a chosen of a god with a magic sword or whatever, in the mythology I'm drawing on for Leviathan, the gods were effectively conquered by humanity. Half due to superior weapons tech and half because they should have watched the small print better._

_The fact it took Zero to beat Zero, that the guardians were just killed offscreen and they didn't really bother to mention it until it was time for ZX is irritating. While in a universe where they committed and permitted genocide, they deserve whatever they get and it's only sad it didn't happen sooner, back when it would have saved lives, once they were held up as an example of people besides Zero fighting, doing it that way was just an insult to all of 22XX. That this was how insignificant everyone else was compared to Zero. _

___One-Winged Angel is Sephiroth's theme, and the song a certain person uses to troll someone else is Frozen by Celldweller. I own neither of them. Just like Rockman/Mega Man, Zero or otherwise, and all relatives thereof. __Not a songfic: the're just referenced for the sake of a joke. _

_I really do like the concept of the Guardians as siblings with decades of in-jokes and practice getting on each other's nerves in a way without any real malice. By the way, Fefnir does not use Ride of the Valkyries as music to bomb things to. Harpuia was built with dibs, given that (s)he was the one partially modeled on a valkyrie (the winged helmet). _

* * *

And lo, on the third day of the third Elf War, Fairy Leviathan, Daughter of Light, looked out upon a vast plain of ice, cold and deadly.

And it was good.

The view was somewhat marred by the facility behind her, but it wasn't like it really mattered. In fact, the nice thing about it was that Weil didn't know that.

She let out a pleased sigh, dusting the powdered snow off her hands, and leaned back onto the throne she'd made for herself, crossing one leg over the other and settling in to wait. This was a good polar day, and it was just going to get better.

"The dropship is en route."

"Suspiciously prompt," she agreed. "Did you expect anything else?" Weil had studied the scripted song and dance of the maverick wars, and she assumed the robot rebellions before them. The fact she had set up shop here like a boss meant all kinds of things, and it would have devolved into a rather boring 'she knew he knew she knew' if it weren't for the fact that Weil had a wonderful weapon for cutting Gordian knots. Which was what she and Phantom were counting on. "He knows we're waiting for the guest of honor: of course he'll oblige us." To do otherwise would be boring. Weil would have preferred that, to let the suspense and terror build, but they all knew he had to get his hands on the Dark Elf. So a facility like this had to be attacked.

She waved up at the night sky. He probably didn't have satellite coverage on them right now, but just in case.

Phantom didn't insult her by asking if everything was prepared, of course.

"It's a beautiful day for a… what _is _the proper name for this?" It wouldn't really be a battle per se, it certainly wouldn't count as a duel… "Ah well." She uncrossed her legs and then crossed them again, her other leg on top this time. "Does my hair look alright?"

"It's fused into one solid ice block."

"Perfect."

There was silence for almost a full minute before she spoke again. "There should be music," she said, as whimsical as the fairies she was named for. And as deadly, of course.

"One-Winged Angel?" Phantom offered, knowing how his sister would react.

Sure enough, she stamped her foot on the ice. "Beg for mercy? Never!" If she hadn't known he was only joking, she would have gone on, but her temper vanished as quick as it had come. To get back at him, she started humming.

Phantom had downloaded Leviathan and Fefnir's music libraries long ago, out of self-defense, and he wished he hadn't when the song started playing in his head. Since he didn't want to have to hear something about _his sister _spreading her legs, or anything else, he hurriedly stopped the file.

She grinned, knowing she'd got him. "Well, we'll provide our own soundtrack." She waved to the side. "Have a seat, dear brother," she said, and blew.

A party trick, but a useful one. "You've remembered your skills quickly," he commented, sitting in the throne she'd shaped for him. Far plainer, although he knew this was out of deference to his aesthetics instead of meant as an insult. "One would think that Harpuia would regain his skills faster, since he made more use of them, but you already have perfect control." And Harpuia… well.

"I'm beginning to wonder about that myself. What exactly _did _you and Harpuia do to yourselves, all those years ago?" Well, there were better things to do today than pry. She blew a mist ring up into the sky. "I have a feeling the aurora will be impressive tonight. A pity we're on the wrong side of the planet. That would have been a nice stage."

"The aurora?" he wondered, not commenting on her suspicions.

"…" She raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh. Yes." She looked back at the sky. "You'll see."

He knew what an aurora looked like, but he also knew she didn't mean anything that simple or obvious.

They heard the rushing sound first, a few seconds before the capsule crashed down into the ice with a thunderous roar. Leviathan looked like she was inwardly awarding points. Neither of them moved. With Leviathan here, they were in no danger of being hit by the ice shrapnel and one of their own spy eyes was up there now. They had to put on a good show, after all. None of them would ever underestimate the importance of morale.

It was more of an effort not to flinch when it opened and Omega screamed to the skies. Well, he didn't flinch. Leviathan, on the other hand, leaned forward avidly. "I never got to fight him, you know," she murmured, for his ears only. "Not properly. There were always civilians I had to guard, or troops I had to worry about." Or, they both knew, baby elves to worry about – not getting possessed was the better part of valor.

They both knew his opinion of elaborate choreography and good fights. The only good fight was one that ended quickly, with the obstacle removed.

Omega advanced ponderously, the ice creaking under the footsteps of the behemoth but not cracking.

At the halfway mark would be best, Phantom thought, but he'd leave that to Leviathan's judgment. That was her department: he had his own.

Sure enough, a few seconds before the behemoth reached that point she raised her hand into the air, bending her wrist elegantly. She held it there for a second, a second more.

Then snapped her fingers.

One nice thing about the outer armor Weil had built Omega (out of materials from sources Phantom preferred not to think about) was that it made him a much bigger target than the original, unmodified design.

Obviously they couldn't bury large bombs under the snow. That would have been detected. Planting a large quantity of small bombs _under _the ice field, though, and then moving them into position up through the ice seemed effective so far. He thought Omega had roared in pain, but it was hard to tell over all the noise. Far louder than the impact, and it went on for far longer.

More than one variety of bomb, of course, in case he could change affinities. And payload, and delivery method. After a certain point, even though Omega was a huge energy signature Phantom couldn't make out a damn thing, so he leaned back and looked at Leviathan, who was leaning forward, eyes wide, in that way he knew from a long time ago meant she wasn't paying much attention to her eyes. They weren't focusing on anything, or moving to track movement: they were just taking in as much data as possible since she couldn't spare the attention to fine-tune them. She was busy looking through other eyes, moving other things.

"I have you in the palm of my hand," she hummed. It might have been a hiss if there were any "s" sounds in there.

"Have you gotten through the outer armor?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant, as though it didn't really matter and certainly wasn't the crux of the entire operation.

"That's right, take it off, take it _all _off…"

Phantom, not disturbed at all because it was obvious that was what his sister was trying to do to him, assumed that meant Omega was jettisoning, or had jettisoned, the outer shell. A little damage to the maverick hunter armor would be nice. Just a little.

Omega truly was much weaker without the dark elf. They'd planned to create a long period of sustained shrapnel damage because it had used the elf's power to render itself temporarily invincible, out of phase with reality, when it was lured onto bombs before, and they might have needed to keep flinging bombs at him until it wore off, the way it had during his battles with X and Zero. They might actually be able to recover and use the extra munitions for other purposes. Not that he'd be giving Fefnir his interesting mines back.

The ancient Maverick Hunters had verified during the Eurasia Disaster that the virus had the ability to warp reality. Weil was the one who had figured out how to control it. Elves could change wounded reploids into whole ones, give them abilities the laws of physics and their schematics said they shouldn't possess: all manner of things.

Elf abilities didn't work on X unless he wanted them to, and as for Zero… for everyone else, the only shield against a baby elf's attack was the death of an allied elf. Against Omega, back then, the death of a sentient being would buy you a bare second of breathing room.

Now? Unless Weil was toying with them? They had a chance.

They might even be able to do this without Leviathan having to summon her legendary fairy lights, the Meikai Army's deadly and vicious Will-o-wisps.

The Army of the Dark Ocean had the largest elf percentage of all of them. They had to, after all, with so many human members. It took elves for a human to wade into a battlefield and fight blade-to-blade and buster-to-buster with reploids in a fair fight.

One more reason Phantom despised fair fights.

Something shot up from the center of the cloud of ice dust, followed an instant later by the swarms of fangs of a many-headed hydra, forged of frost, heads still dragging up bombs from the deep. Both Fefnir and Leviathan had been modeled on dragons, after all.

It would also have been stating the obvious to ask, 'Is that him?' so he didn't, instead watching it dive back down, splitting one ice dragon from fangs to the ground. Like the mythical hydra, the ice and snow only formed into two new dragons.

"Look at that," she said admiringly, dwelling on every word as she savored the sight before her many eyes. "It's like he's dancing. Zero never fought like that in front of me."

Phantom bit back the obvious response: of course not, when they'd met him, when he'd fought alongside them, Zero had been trapped in a body that actually had to obey the laws of physics. Mostly. But Zero's old body was old-style. It had too few flex points, was too blocky to twist like that. It had too much momentum, was too massive to turn that easily.

But it had been built by Dr. Wily, who had viewed the laws of physics as more like guidelines. To gleefully color outside and laugh madly at the universe when it tried to say he couldn't do that.

Still, as Omega dodged dragon after serpentine dragon, using them as stepping stones and reducing them to rubble in a dance that should have been far too skillful, far too full of artistry, for something Weil had reduced to a near-brainless beast, as Leviathan watched the way she'd watched rainbows and waterfalls long ago, he had to wonder, "Are you even trying to bite him?" To bite him and drag him down, deep under the sea, into her domain, the true palm of her hand? She couldn't be doing this to tire him out; he had effectively infinite energy.

"Of course not," she responded, miffed. "That would defeat the purpose of the exercise." She did have some tactical sense; he should know that. She wasn't going to lose sight of the point of a battle in some mindless orgy of destruction unless it was okay to. No matter how perfect an opponent was, no matter that Omega was like Everest had been before it was hit by a kinetic weapon: to be conquered because it was _there_. As the ultimate proof of a warrior's existence.

Well, it wasn't like defeating Omega would grant her the title of the strongest. She'd have to face Zero and her father for that, and she was a few centuries too early to even think of challenging the one who had put her back together several times and knew quite well how to take his own creation apart. She'd also have to be good enough to be _sure _that X wasn't just letting her win.

"Ah, yes." Phantom was surprised at himself. How had he forgotten what they'd come here to do? Had he really thought Leviathan should win? Destroy Omega, and it would simply return, having learned from the experience. "But should you really be toying with someone with the infinite potential system?"

"Weil turned it off, remember?" Otherwise, Dr. Wily's creation would have evolved to break free of Weil's control, goaded into evolving every time his programming tried to command it to do something it didn't feel like.

"Omega lacks the system. His body doesn't," he corrected her.

"So _that's _why he's doing so well." Responding to her attacks like an intelligent opponent, learning from each near miss. "Isn't he beautiful?"

"You do realize that you're oogling a body that might have belonged to one of our parents, if things had been different?" he reminded her.

She pouted. "Don't ruin my fantasies. Come on, brother. Loosen up. Relax." She leaned over to him and quickly hissed, "And study his attack patterns and movement algorithms!" Her annoyed expression turned back into a pleasant smile as she returned to 'admiring' Omega. "I know _I _am."

Right, he realized. That _was _the entire point of the exercise. He set his software to study how Omega moved, how the fall of that hair adjusted for various factors, how those turns faked natural and exactly how they weren't quite natural.

Despite Leviathan's efforts, he was slowly making his way towards them. On average, since he was moving all over the ice field, smashing one dragon and sliding down the back of another. Since Leviathan had begun her attack when he was in the center of the target area, there had been no direction to head that would get him to the edge faster than any other.

"Without the dark elf, I don't think he can use _those _attacks_," _Leviathan said that as though it was really such a pity that he couldn't slam down into the plain and shatter everything on it that wasn't protected by an elf. Well, he'd dump himself into the ocean if he tried.

Phantom didn't respond, busy making up for the time he'd wasted assuming there wasn't a method to Leviathan's madness.

"You know," she said, after a few more seconds of the sound of shattering ice and a battle that was making her think of one between Susa-no-o, the raging god, and Orochi, "If this doesn't work, I'll kill you. Of course." That last sentence was said almost apologetically, since it was insulting his intelligence to tell him something he should damn well know already.

"You can fight it out with Harpuia and Fefnir to see who gets to," he agreed.

"Oh, no. I'll just kill you if it doesn't work. They'll kill you even if it does." She smirked at him, eyes still on the enemy.

True, he would have acknowledged, if the whole thing wasn't a figure of speech. For one thing, if it didn't work he would be far too thoroughly killed for anyone else to have a go.

To be fair to Fefnir, Harpuia and their probable reaction to finding out about this, it _was _rather foolish of him to want to try something that had only been tried once, and failed rather hilariously. Well, Axl had found it hilarious, telling the story: X had always winced in sympathy because their father had once been like that, even when the villain obviously deserved it. Still, it _should_ work. In this case. And it certainly wasn't anything Weil, or Wily, could have possibly foreseen.

Well, _maybe _Wily. Not Weil. Not when his conversation with Copy-X had revealed that he still, after all this time, hadn't figured a few things out.

Leviathan, noticing something he hadn't, stood, slinging her spear over her shoulders. Surely enough, in a few more leaps Omega cleared the last of the dragons, landing on the comparatively solid ground of the roof of the facility behind them. "I am the messiah!" he announced, a distorted speech half in a long-dead language, only left in its mind because Weil had found the meaning amusing, or appropriate. Did he have any idea what Dr. Wily had been after, putting a concept like that in his ultimate weapon, his final creation's instincts and purpose?

Leviathan clearly found it pitiful enough to roll her eyes. That showed Phantom that she was all back behind her eyes now, instead of the many eyes of her dragons, focused on her body and this battle.

'Showtime,' was certainly an inappropriate thing to say, given that the showy part was over.

Now it was time to go to work.

* * *

_Something to consider when it comes to Leviathan's powers is that she wasn't built for fighting. She was built for_ _public works projects_ _& ecological recovery. She's supposed to be able to control ocean currents and temperature and if you do the math? OMFG, the amount of mass and energy involved there! All I can say is that X must have been really, really sure the virus was gone. Seriously: Leviathan is like nuclear Armageddon, only the mavericks wouldn't have had to clean up (as much…) pesky radiation afterwards._

_A lot of the robot master weapons in the Classic series are also converted peaceful abilities, but this is a construction tool capable of, oh, getting mountain ranges out of the way being translated into gameplay as a firecracker. Of course, that's an understatement. Ocean currents are more like several mountain ranges per second. _

_Sadly, the ability to go through the polar ice caps like a billion tons of already-naturally-pressurized-and-superheated water-exploding-into-steam through butter isn't much use against an enemy that will come back to life a ridiculous number of times. Or when you're trying to, you know, _not _destroy the world. There's this trope called The Godzilla Threshold: __"__Things are at the point where even summoning Godzilla, king of monsters and patron saint of collateral damage, could not possibly make the crisis any worse." When saying, 'Um, Capcom? You created a character that would be able to generate and _target _as many tidal waves as they felt like,' does not make them at all overpowered relative to what they're dealing with. _

_Unless you ignore this part of their backstory as Capcom being Capcom, the way I'm ignoring the part about them being X's split personalities, (Which would make Zero/Leviathan a male/male pairing if it weren't for the fact that reploids don't have human gender) Leviathan and Harpuia (provided their support systems are fully operational) are People of Mass Destruction. Sadly, Levi's powers are much better at, oh, devastating countries than preventing countries from being devastated. Small targets and being on defense are a massive disadvantage, but I thought I owed her one chance to show off, since I'm going to be giving Harpuia quite a few and I don't even _like _Harpuia. _


	9. Of Three Furies

_A lot of people get them confused, but sirens were actually _bird_-women, not fish-women or mermaids. 'Fairy Leviathan' is 'Siren General Leviathan' in Japanese, apparently, and I have to wonder at which point in the Telephone chain that is intercultural and linguistic mythology references the Sadly Mythtaken or mistranslation occurred. Because if one of the guardians were to be called a siren, it should be Harpuia._

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, when Leviathan let herself go berserk there was still a part of her that was rational. Well, partially rational. As rational as she got these days.

It was, she thought, the closest a reploid could come to the state human martial artists tried to achieve, except better. They used countless katas to try to get their body to react automatically, their trained reflexes handling the fighting for them while the conscious mind got to strategize and focus its attention on things like the goal and planning ahead.

Leviathan was the tactician of the four because she could react to changing circumstances on the battlefield like no other.

While most of her was processing things along the lines of _dodge parry sniper over there that one can slide fast but not fast enough! Oooh, bleeding, move in for the kill! That's right, eat it, my dragons, tear them apart! _a remote part of her was keeping track of the positions of all of her minions and enemies, and noticing things like how sending someone _there _would create an opportunity for more of the good kind of mass carnage.

Of course, there actually was a reason part of her experienced battle as a first-person shooter and part of her could see it as real-time strategy at the same time. It was a pity she couldn't train the rest of her troops to do it, but they didn't have the equipment. Harpuia did, but Harpuia didn't seem able to compartmentalize the way she could, for some reason. Or perhaps Harpuia didn't want to.

When they were young, she'd understood Harpuia very well, for reasons related to the fact that part of her was thinking that Omega's hair was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen, because she might be able to pin it to the ice, use it for leverage, and claw those pretty red eyes out; and part of her was able to consider things like the mission, what Harpuia was about to do, what effects that might have on this battle and the fact she was so,_ so_ embarrassed.

This was quite possibly, in fact hopefully, the most important and epic battle she might ever fight in her life. Well, X would have said that every battle was equally important because she had better not be fighting unless lives were on the line and every life was precious, but come on. This was _Omega_. The god-damn God of Destruction.

And she was so, _so_ out of practice.

It wasn't just that she was out of practice with using her powers, she was even out of practice using her goddamn spear. Of course she'd trained, of course she'd sparred with her siblings and of course she'd been fighting rogue mechanaloids in the wastes.

But training against Neo Arcadian reploids was, there was no way around it, training herself to fight _weak _opponents. For several decades, the most effective moves had generally been ones that assumed that her enemy couldn't move in certain ways, wouldn't be smart enough to see openings, and so on. The four of them had all known this, which was why they'd made time to spar against each other, but the thing was that after so many decades they knew each other's fighting styles like the backs of their hands. The way to win wasn't to fight like one would facing a strong, unknown opponent, the way to win was to play the metagame, the 'he knows I know he knows' with her understanding of Fefnir, Harpuia and Phantom.

As for mechanaloids? An enemy that couldn't think was scrap.

Unless it had the infinite potential system. Like, oh, _Omega_.

She had spent the last several decades training herself in sucking against a powerful , unknown opponent.

Her frustration at this realization would have made her want to kill things if she hadn't already wanted to kill things. With all of her heart, with all of her soul. That was the _point_ of going berserk, that focused determination, as insane as a human had to be when they broke their shoulder slamming into a fucking ride armor and flipping the damn thing over. That determination that moved heaven and earth, that brought with it the power to move heaven and earth.

X couldn't put them in capsules, but he'd wanted them to have the same understanding of themselves that he did. He'd wanted to give them every gift he'd had, and more. So he'd tried to teach them to study themselves, made them read books about it.

She hadn't paid attention to most of it, but there was one thing that had struck with her: Anger was what happened when something wasn't right, and needed to be changed. So, the body or system would authorize energy in order to use it to fix that thing. The way to get rid of anger was to recognize when something was making you angry, what the real problem was, and use that energy to fix that problem. Calmly.

Of course, X had wanted her to become her own person, and what this person had decided was _screw being calm_. Anger was motivation, it was authorizing her systems to push themselves right up against the limit, and past it if and only if it was worth it.

So even the part of her that viewed even Omega as a piece on her chessboard was seething with fury like the depths of the dark ocean. Ice? Ice was only on the surface. It couldn't survive down there. She could.

They were just lucky that for some reason, Weil hadn't ordered Omega to focus on them. After the two of them were drawn into the fight, Omega became as willing to go after her dragons or anything else that moved as eagerly as the two of them. Perhaps it had headed for them before because it had offended its sensibilities that there were two living beings in the vicinity that were calm instead of fighting for their lives.

When they'd planned this out, she'd been thinking in terms of her and Omega pressing against each other, spear to saber, a vicious deadlock, but that really wasn't going to work. She'd get vivisected.

So, not only was she _sucking _and it was _embarrassing_, but it was actually hindering the mission. It was a good thing that made her angry, because she was going to need every bit of anger she could muster up.

Reinforcements would also be nice. Normally, air support would only be so effective in a situation like this, but… No, if Harpuia tried to intervene, she'd have to tell him to shove off. They certainly couldn't brief him on the plan with Omega right here, Weil would be trying to listen in.

Not to mention that while Harpuia must have already begun to get to work, it would take time to get everything up to spec. If they were still at this by the time Harpuia was in a position to help, then Omega's infinite potential system would probably be starting to give it the upper hand against the two of them. It was learning their tricks, every hit goading it into evolving, and they were out of practice when it came to learning enemies.

At least Phantom was sticking to distance attacks for now, never closing with Omega or letting Omega close with him. That would help, somewhat, she reflected as she mentally activated the timers on the mines she'd placed right over _there_. There was enough wireless communication going on between her and her dragons constantly that she wasn't worried about Omega learning how to realize she'd activated bombs from automatically tracking signal flow. Even if that body had fought robot masters.

She and Harpuia had debated whether or not it had, actually. Well, now Omega's total combat data was no longer academic.

There was a part of her that just had to admire good engineering, specifically the part of her that wasn't currently trying to skewer Omega's foot, and trying to analyze his performance was making her wish she'd actually learned how to write poetry, back then.

Well now… She pulled back a little, using mid-to-long range attacks to give herself a few more precious milliseconds of warning. It seemed like Harpuia had gotten things straightened out enough that he could reach out and get in contact with her, and she needed to make sure Omega couldn't close with her while that might distract her. They hadn't connected like this in ages, so it was taking the automatic system she had for that longer than usual to sync up. Actually, they hadn't done this since Weil had revealed himself and all the grand plans to concentrate pollutants in one place and control the water cycle to eliminate acid rain and lower the amount of heavy metals in the ocean water enough it could be repopulated with edible things had been put on hold…

All of a sudden, Leviathan was calm.

She didn't like that. She _really _didn't like that. She couldn't fight like this.

She obviously hadn't been embarrassed enough to wish that the ice would open up and swallow her before, since if she really had been, she had the power to do it. Like the way it had just opened up and swallowed Phantom.

In a cave several dozen meters below the surface, Phantom landed easily, as always, and looked at her questioningly when she showed up. Change of plans? She could tell that was what he was wondering. They couldn't carry on a conversation while fighting Omega, so it made sense that she'd made them some breathing room.

He didn't expect her to grab the chestplate of his armor. "What did Harpuia do to himself." No. "What did Harpuia do to _herself_." Because she could guess the timing. No. It wasn't a guess.

She already _knew_. That was why she was calm: there was nothing she could do about it. Of course, she could know that rationally all she liked, but this was also family. While there was any hope, she couldn't give up.

Phantom stared at her. Was she really asking this _now_, in the middle of a battle with _Omega?_

Her glare told him that yes, she was, because it was that damn important.

How could she concentrate on the mission when there was still any possibility there might be hope?

This was Omega, but this was _family_. This was her twin! The two of them had been designed as a matched set, sea and sky, mermaid and siren! They'd finished each other's sentences!

Even though he was her brother, Phantom would never be able to understand. He wasn't capable of interfacing with someone else's mind the way they could, the way they'd had to in order to be capable of doing what the world needed.

He looked at her, and she could tell that he was considering deflecting her question or trying to say he didn't know, but he knew she knew he knew that wouldn't work. "I can't be sure."

"How can you not be sure?" she screamed at him, even though she could tell that was the truth.

"Because there's no way to be sure except open-processor surgery and several data readouts!" he almost hissed at her, this close to actually raising his voice, because how dare she imply he hadn't cared! When Harpuia was his family too? _"_And even I couldn't keep him from noticing _that. _I've broken into his medical records, I managed to get a nanite sample, but there's no way to tell without observing if the nanites there respond to stimuli or what he's thinking! There are nanites _there_, but the dedicated drives have nanites too, they're just limited to repairs." He didn't know, he was helpless and he _hated _it. Knowledge was power, what was known could be understood could be _controlled_, and the more important something, or someone, was…

Leviathan let him go. "Well. Now you can be sure." Ah, there the anger was. She could feel it bubbling up. "So Siren Harpuia really is dead."

"He told us that himself." Back then. Back when he'd made his choice, just like Phantom had.

They'd all been made with the potential to be whatever they chose to be. Whoever they chose to be. That was X's wish for them. That they'd have the freedom so many of his children had stolen from them.

And if two of them had chosen to give up that freedom, in different ways, well. It was their choice. They'd never talked about it. They'd never wanted X to know.

"My sister is dead." And in her place was something that half of Leviathan found horrifying alien and the other half found both beautiful in the same way her spear was beautiful when it accomplished what it had been made to do and disgustingly ugly, an outrage against all aesthetics, because things should not become less than they had been. Things should not deliberately cripple themselves. It was not, it was not… It was something that should not be true, trying to acknowledge it was throwing out the same error messages as she'd get for dividing by zero. Others wasted their own potential all the time, and tried to force other people to waste their potential too, but _they _did not do that. "Half-dead," Leviathan corrected herself, because while normally melodrama was nice, right now facts were comforting. "She maimed herself, and I didn't even realize it." Alright.

_Now _she was ready to smash the world.

Or whatever got in her way. By, for example, trying to smash the world before she did.

She had never felt so alone. Half of her couldn't stand this feeling and the other half _really _couldn't stand it.

Anger was much better. It didn't hurt, for one thing. It hurt other things. Like Weil, who was the reason all of this had happened.

"No more putting it off. Be ready to move as soon as I reach the surface," she ordered Phantom, and pushed him up through the ice without a by-your-leave.

If anything, Phantom was glad that she'd let him go without forcing him to tell her the _really _bad part of his suspicions.

Omega had been trying to dig into the ice to get at them, roaring in frustration and dodging dragons. It took the beast awhile to tear himself out of the mob that was nipping at his heels when Phantom reached the surface. Phantom tried to keep himself an average of three meters away from Omega and readied himself for step three. Leviathan was certain, given his extensive knowledge of her, to accomplish step two in a certain manner.

Getting both of them out of here intact(ish) was step four and Leviathan's problem again. Or really, you could say that they had the same step four, which was 'try not to die.'

Here she came, surging out of the ice like one of the whales she'd dreamed of reintroducing to the oceans, in her armed phenomenon form. They'd agreed without needing to say it aloud not to use those against Omega, because against an opponent like this, all they would accomplish was making it easier for Omega to skewer them.

Step 1: Remove Omega's outer armor via ice dragon-delivered ordnance of wide variety in case Omega had defenses against one type or could shift its elemental vulnerabilities. If that didn't work, use cyber-elves.

Step 2: Have Leviathan cause Omega to hold still for a sufficient period of time. The way he would, for instance, when using a thrusting attack, celebrating landing a crippling blow, and trying to remove his sword afterwards from someone like, oh, Leviathan, who was bloody-minded enough not to let go no matter how much it hurt.

Step 3:

As Omega lined up his sword to strike, Phantom jumped ran up the back of one of Leviathan's ice dragons and jumped, reaching out not with a weapon but his bare, unarmored hand, trying to make contact with Omega.

Or rather, the crystal in his forehead.

Omega was as fast as Phantom had earlier observed: he only managed to brush it with his index finger.

He knew he'd succeeded when he felt the extremely disquieting sensation of being in two places at once. He'd say he didn't know how Leviathan and Harpuia managed it except that he _did _and it wasn't something he was capable of. His type of mind didn't work that way.

For example, he could never have triggered Leviathan's internal teleport unit the way she triggered his the instant his finger lost contact with that gem. Well, that was her half of step four accomplished.

The teleport made it easier for him to decide which of the two places to pay attention to, and it was very important that his attention was undivided right now.

Since now _Omega's _attention was undivided, while Phantom had multiple targets to destroy, the opposite of the previous tactical situation.

Well, at least he had a fighting chance, he thought as he activated his armed phenomenon form (interesting that it worked here, in this place) in order to do as much damage as possible in as short a time as possible. He'd been worried that he'd be imprisoned instantly, the way Lumine had been (Axl hadn't even known he was there for months) or, well, _eaten_ instantly.

Well, he might not have Harpuia or Leviathan's networking capability, or the sometimes-envied relative _normalcy _of Fefnir, but if there was one thing… Well, alright, two things newgen reploids were good at, they were enemy analysis and mental combat.

Those were what _his _race had been designed for, after all.

And who better to design something capable of killing Zero's body than the vengeful ghost of Zero's own builder?

* * *

_It has been against the site's rules for awhile to respond to reviews in the A/Ns of the next chapter, so the next bit is just my usual DVD Commentary/rant instead of a response to a certain anon review:_

_Zero and X are indeed badass, and as Leviathan touches on in this chapter, there's really nothing to compare with them in 22XX (except the guardians themselves, who are just pieces/aspects of X according to Word of God that I am ignoring the hell out of, although if anyone ever writes a fic that examines what the whole MPD thing would really mean, I want a link). The way the infinite potential system works, the only limit on X and Zero's capabilities is how challenged they are. When they'll evolve to defeat any opponent or obstacle, they'll only stop gaining strength when they run out of opponents that can give them an instant's challenge. _

_When you have a character who explicitly has the power to come up with new powers and improve their stats, generating Dei Ex Machinae (plural of Deus Ex Machina) as-needed to save the day, then you're basically talking about a Deus _Est _Machina: Physical Gods (to resort to tropes so I don't have to define all the terms). _

_How you define a god is an old question, but one of the better definitions I've seen is roughly 'a benevolent non-human entity that has powers beyond ordinary humans and will respond to requests for help.' Of course, that only covers gods worth giving the time of day to, not dark gods or uncaring forces of nature._

_So, I don't object to the guardians being wiped out ingloriously. They deserved it. In fact, if it had happened on-screen, it would have been a good narrative technique for showing the player just what they were dealing with. When mortals fight gods, most of the time, this is what happens. What I object to is how the writers handled the entire thing from a thematic/meta perspective. Retconning away the only bit of resolution the Guardians' storyline actually got. _

_Are X and Zero (and, by extension, the guardians and Omega) far more powerful than the Resistance and Ciel? Yes. Does that make the others worthless and everything they do pointless? It shouldn't, especially when Zero said that Ciel should make the future, not him. The series coming out that way is a Broken Aesop. _


	10. No Shelter Here

_Since I wanted a lullaby for family fluff and symbolism/characterization/foreshadowing purposes, but Chronicle Key & Reisha's Lullaby are incredibly depressing, this one is from Singing Hill – Ar Ciel, Ar Dor, which is about the birth of the world, going from 'lump of star stuff' to habitable. AbstractGarden on Youtube has a translation video. The lyrics of the lullaby are actually taken from two parts of the song: you can hear the first part best at 1:38 to 2:07 & the later part starts at 5:22ish. __Go listen to it: Ar Tonelico's music is gorgeous. Although, while the rest of the song has some nice bits, some of it won't make any sense unless you know a bit about the AT verse's mythology and laws of physics. While I'm at it, I don't own Ar Tonelico: Gust/Banpresto do. _

_By the way, this isn't an _Ar Tonelico_ crossover, or even a fusion: I'm just borrowing its reality-warping programming languages for how elf powers work. Because they are awesome and the Megaman 'verse has a music theme going back to Classic anyway. I'm still convinced that Alia should have been Aria, as a homage to Classic naming if nothing else. _

_There's also a reference to a bit from _Journey to the West_. I may be getting it mixed up with something else (yeesh, my memory), but if I recall correctly: the monkey king defied Buddha, and fled. He went all the way to one of the pillars of the universe… Only to find that it was one of the Buddha's fingers, and he had merely crossed from one side to the other of the palm of his hand: he'd been within his grasp the entire time, while he crowed that he was free. I joke that the moral is that it's generally a bad idea to tick off people who are one with the universe, or even just the dimension you happen to be in at the time. Finally playing _Lunar: Eternal Blue_ reminded me of it, because apparently the maker of the game viewed this as an insult to human potential, that for all his effort and genius, this was all that the monkey king could do, faced with a god. I tend to think that if he were that wise, he would have known it wouldn't work and done something else._

* * *

"_Wee yea accrroad omnis manaf_," X sang softly, combing his fingers through the hair she'd never had, although there had been plans to build a body compatible with her. The plans and sketches were still there in X's memory banks, versions where there were extensions on her helmet meant to invoke the imagery of a legendary elf's pointed ears, like Harpuia's winged helm, and versions where she didn't wear a helmet and well-modeled human ears came to graceful points.

The former outnumbered the latter. X had truly believed in peace, but not enough to leave his children defenseless, thank god-no, thank goodness, which actually existed. Here, at least.

"_Wee yea accrroad sos hartes yor_," he sang, even though a lullaby was useless since she didn't sleep. Unlike X, who was the fruit of decades of experience, with a century of fine-tuning, she had been cobbled together in a hurry. If it came down to it, all they'd needed, and they'd needed it desperately, was for her to survive long enough to purge the world once. If she died doing it, well, how many children had died, made to join the Hunters, to die at the hands of the mavericks or, worse, to have their souls devoured by the virus?

She couldn't sleep any more than the lesser elves could, because her energies were her self-sustaining mental processes, "Like computers before solid-state memory," X had said once. If she stopped thinking, she'd die. And they couldn't have that, not before she'd accomplished her task. So she didn't have the capability to escape into oblivion, even for a few hours.

It was still calming, and she needed that, with Weil out there. If she grew too frantic, if she summoned too much power, it would overpower X's and Weil might detect her.

Even though X really was growing stronger, growing happier. Even though he'd had to give up his greatest treasure, even though this was forcing him to pay attention to the outside world again.

Because Zero.

X had started to feel again. Not aching pain or numbness, but enough happiness, enough belief that the world could be made better, to put processing power behind this song, to make it more than empty words in a language almost no one but elves knew.

Not much power, but it was what he had, and he would give her, give all of them, what he had.

He couldn't sing the second half: it would hurt too much, but he did what he could, so she didn't begrudge him it, even though he'd sang it for the children he'd built with his own two hands.

There was a moment of silence when X finished, but then, "_Wes yea ra gyen art noes anw noes…"_

It was hard for her not to think of X as frail.

He wore his heart on his sleeve, and she could see the scars in his mind. They were so deep that it was easy to pity him and hard to keep in mind what had given him these scars. What he'd _survived_.

It was hard to keep in mind that nearly losing his ability to care had only honed his ability to kill.

Dr. Weil had broken her, made it easy for her mind to be ruled by fear. It was hard to be scared of X.

It was hard to remember that he had defeated Weil. That most of the time he hadn't even noticed it when the virus tried to infect him, it was second nature to him to smash aside anything that tried to encroach on his mind.

It was hard to remember that he could do the thing that scared her most of all. He'd been the first to do it, in fact. But when his mind grabbed hold of her, caged her in, even if it was only to keep her safe while he lashed out, when all she could feel from his mind was a will to destroy that rivaled Omega's, when his mind screamed _"How many times will I have to kill you?_" into the void, a fanged, grieving roar of frustration, and was willing to kill and kill again, even onto the end of eternity, sick of it, weary to the bone, but it was the hesitation that had been lost, not the will to annihilate?

Now that he was two drives away, Phantom had enough breathing room to look back on that and realize what a stupid, stupid thing to do _that _had been.

Hadn't he learned his lesson the last time he did something this stupid? Oh, yes, try to sneak up on X, who had been one of his instructors with that ninja armor of his. _Brilliant _idea. Oh, sure, he'd managed it, eventually, but that had been the most dangerous part. Because no civilian could possibly sneak up on X, and any ally should know better, so that left enemies. Phantom _knew _what happened when someone startled X, with his reflexes honed by ages of combat. The first time Phantom had tried it and actually succeeded, since X was working on something technical, he'd nearly gotten his head blown off and then X had hugged him, both of them shaking at how close that had been, his father half apologizing and half yelling at him and if he _ever _did that again…

X had come out of the war, but the wars weren't quite out of X.

And if that was what happened when someone snuck up on him in the real world, where there were friends as well as foes and X had tried very hard not to kill people by accident, then what had he expected to happen here? When anything that invaded X's mind, be it the virus or elves, would be crushed? That had been Dr. Light's wish, that his son would never have to be afraid of losing himself.

Dr. Wily had done his best to crush that dream, but every attempt had merely strengthened X's defenses. The infinite potential system, under the pressure of constant threats, had evolved him into a juggernaut. He'd rather go back and try a second round with Omega right now: it was _much _safer.

He had to get out of here, give X time to realize that the voice that had remembered that old lullaby, that old spell, trying to shape the universe, even just a tiny bit more, into a place where they could be safe and happy, had been Phantom and not one of Wily's or Weil's… That he might be X's son, but he was Phantom, not yet another mockery of stolen Sigma sent to torment his father.

Too late.

The defense program that snapped around him now was a clawed hand, a cage of titanium and jagged crystal, and what this meant chilled him to the bone. X had always destroyed evil. If he was aiming to capture, not kill, while Phantom could still feel that brightly-burning rage, then X wanted to _hurt_. "_Did you really think that you could hide from me, here, in my own systems? For all your running, you are still within the palm of my hand."_

At least that moment of analysis, to determine what he was and what, specifically, to do to him let X realize that this was, "_Phantom_?" A humanoid form shimmered into place, and Phantom's eyes widened, surprised.

That wasn't an elf: it wasn't solid because it was akin to a hologram. The crystals this mindscape was constructed out of, the light shattered into countless chaotic rainbows by a host of prisms: _that_ was X. Omega was a beast in a cage: X was this world. Phantom had known it theoretically, that while other reploids had nanites that could be traced back to X, programs written by others, X had been given a place to grow, a framework to grow in, so that he could be himself. Forge himself into who he wished to be.

Omega had Weil's work, and Wily's, channeling him, harnessing him. There was nothing in this place but X and X's will, except Phantom and, "_The dark elf?"_ Of _course. _Damn it, he should have known. If X could conceal Zero, he could conceal the dark elf. Where were they, anyway-Oh, X had _got _to be kidding him. Seriously? Seriously?

Phantom's head sunk into his hands.

"_Phantom_?" X asked, concerned, the cage vanishing with a thought because it was a thought. "_Are you alright_?"

"_You were here the entire time_?" Phantom realized that he was almost whining pitifully, but he couldn't help himself. They had gone frantic looking for X, he'd scoured the world, practically torn Neo Arcadia apart and the _entire time_, the _entire time_, X had been in the very center of the same city that prayed for his return.

"_You can tell where we are?" _X was surprised, and perhaps there was a flash of worry, there and gone.

Phantom didn't know if he wanted to be touched that X had never truly left them or if he wanted to curl up into a ball and die of shame. Or bang his head repeatedly against one of those crystals. _"The Sanctum of Yggdrasil?"_ It was attached to X's private quarters, and no one went there, no one, without X. It wasn't just a memorial, it was the system that held the remnants of this world together, and where better for X to keep the dark elf than close to him, somewhere he spent enough time that his energy signature would block detection of the dark elf's?

That meant he'd kept the dark elf near him since the end of the second Elf War, which was blindingly obvious, in hindsight. It was by watching X that he'd learned what a good strategy it was to keep his friends close and his enemies closer. _Forget_ what X had done by offering Weil's Numbers a chance to have new lives and make up for what they had been used to do as the Eight Gentle Judges: Wily had built an unstoppable super-robot-android-elf-_thing_ to kill X, and X had made it his best friend, his partner-in-arms, his other half.

"_I knew I'd be safe here," _X said, clearly trying to help him feel better.

Yes, safe. In the center of Neo Arcadia, the city Phantom and the others guarded. In the building where Phantom _lived_. The one he'd thought he knew like the back of his hand, the one he and his forces constantly patrolled.

Right. Under. His Nose.

This entire time.

_The entire time_.

His principle, the person he'd chosen to protect, and he hadn't known. He hadn't even suspected. He didn't even know how it was _possible_, there weren't any secret compartments, or, or… He'd mapped every inch of this place, there were sensors everywhere…

He had utterly, utterly failed. This was just… he felt like he should commit seppuku, or turn in his ninja merit badge and right to be called a bodyguard to someone, because he had just utterly lost his right to consider himself such.

Stupid, stupid, stupid…

And X was looking at him in that worried for him but utterly clueless as to why he was upset way, with that fresh-faced, innocent, general goodwill, that made him look like a human not even done with high school. The one that had made Zero comment, sotto voice, that X was the oldest person on the planet and still looked like jailbait. That had been decades ago and if anything it was even truer now, because this projection of X looked waif-like in that robe-thing.

Phantom had grown used to being the one that knew everything. The one that could find out the others' secrets. Leviathan assuming that of course he knew what was going on with Harpuia was not an isolated incident. He knew why Harpuia and Levaithan were the only ones X had told that Dr. Wily, and hence Zero, were the origins of the virus, while he and Fefnir had been told that they'd just discovered that Zero was a proto-elf while they were researching his immunity and used that to create a true elf and so on. He'd started to pride himself on his abilities when an investigator should abandon pride, keeping in mind the amount they didn't know and how they could be wrong. A guard should never make assumptions.

Alright, normally he avoided this kind of juvenile language, but there was no way around it:

He had just been _owned_. By his own _dad_. X had just set up shop right under Phantom's nose, protecting the dark elf, and he'd not only known that Phantom would be unable to find him, he'd turned Phantom's abilities into an asset, another level of concealment.

Wasn't it X that had told him that one should try to turn the enemy's strengths into one's own strengths? Turn their abilities as well as their weaknesses into advantages? In hindsight, he wanted to kick himself. Sure, it should be impossible for X to be here, but this was X! He should have thought of the problem of where X would go in terms of where was the place that best suited X's purposes, not just somewhere to run and hide!

"_Well, um, why don't we head over there?"_ X asked, to end the awkward moment. _"Have you told anyone else where I am yet?"_

"_No, Master X,"_ Phantom answered automatically, barely paying attention.

"_Good,"_ X said, and smiled a smile that didn't ring any alarm bells in Phantom's head.


	11. What Rough Beast

_I haven't got the next part of Phantom's storyline written, which will be the part where he tells X what the blank he's doing there, so we're jumping back a bit to Zero. _

_The chapter title is a reference to one of those poems that I find quoted a lot. I thought it was appropriate to Zero's thoughts in the chapter and his status as an Anti-Anti-Christ (Ah, TVTropes)._

* * *

_Not a rookie after all_, Zero thought, as several rapid buster shots flew past him to destroy a mechanaloid. Not as good as Zero himself, of course, who had dispatched the other two by firing as he ran up, then kicking the other one down and tearing its head off as it lay on the ground. But good.

_That_, the bare-handed violence, he didn't have the same kind of ingrained memory of as he did of the energy pistols, but it was inefficient to rely on weapons like this at close range, some part of him thought, and since he had the physical strength, why not? He _felt _immensely critical of his own combat performance, which was irritating but understandable. If he'd lost practically every memory file in his head and combat technique he had, then of course his performance would suffer.

Oh, he was doing better than the others, but then not only was he this 'Legendary Zero' they were so awed by, and he probably hadn't gotten a title like that by being weak, but he _felt _that of _course _he was stronger than they were.

The strongest, although the arrogance in that thought made him wince. Heck, even if it might be nothing but an accurate assessment. He hoped it wasn't _his _assessment. Underestimating even enemies that were a fraction as strong as he was would be a _fantastically _idiotic way to die.

Regardless, being weak enough that he hadn't been able to destroy all three before someone who wasn't used to real combat had gotten up the nerve to not just start planning on the fly, but quickly shooting to kill in a way that involved firing only a few feet away from where he was? On the one hand, good for the rookie. On the other, how embarrassing.

No, the rookie was no rookie: to his instincts, the same that constantly analyzed his surroundings and highlighted good places for an ambush and so much else, there was more to him than that.

Why was someone who had, by his own admission, never been in actual combat before better at it than a member of some 'Rekku Army?' Not to mention the differences in their construction quality. And…

Zero shook his head, because trying to think about it was constantly giving him this very annoying feeling that he _knew _this, but then there was some red flag that hinted that maybe this wasn't whatever he thought it was and something was very wrong, and then it would decide that he knew this again, because acting weirdly was a normal trait of whatever 'this' was, except…

In any case, the first impression Zero had gotten of the reploid that he was going to mentally tag 'the rookie' until he introduced himself, had turned out to be wrong. He was _very _well trained, even if Zero didn't think he'd shot at actual reploids or mechanaloids to kill until today. He'd settled down too quickly, become casual about firing so close to someone else too quickly, for him to be new to this. No, he knew his capabilities.

Of course, that begged the question of why he'd done something like make himself a big target during the battle Zero had woken up to when he had to know that over the long term-

_Oh, _Zero realized, as the rookie held his position because Zero was and the little lieutenant and the human started to catch up to them now that the shooting was over. _He cared. _

About the human. And Zero, or more specifically whatever made Zero so important to him. Whatever Zero represented to him.

Caring, Zero knew, as surely as he knew that buster shots were damaging, made people do damn stupid things. The more important something was to them, the more nervous they'd be about it, until the more they cared, the more likely they were to screw something up, half the time. When they were trying to impress someone, the way the little lieutenant would dearly like a chance to impress him. When they were trying to protect someone or something.

_The human_. _Ciel_, Zero corrected himself. It was in the way he stood, the way his sensors were angled, once Zero thought about it, about what an arrangement like that might mean. _Bodyguard_? he wondered briefly, but no. He'd be better trained, he'd have it down, he wouldn't take it so personally if that was all it was. So why else did people 'care?' Why was the human 'his,' the way Zero had decided all of them were under Zero's protection, at least for now? Although Zero had done this longer, he knew better than to let himself Care and let that make him nervous, act like this was different from any other mission or training session, let it get in the way.

He was still, on reflection, a little surprised, somewhere in his systems, that he'd decided that they were worth protecting so fast. Why was he so sure that they were on his side? For all he knew, they might idolize him as a legendary enemy. Trust made betrayal easier.

Of course, he didn't think that they'd anticipated that something like this would happen to his memory files. The rookie at least, was no actor… And that thought raised an instant red flag. Because the rookie _cared_. He wasn't faking that, Zero knew as he turned around to see the young reploid looking at Ciel, clearly wondering if she was tired from all of this climbing up through the abandoned complex, but it was a _reason _to fake things.

On the one hand, the rookie had started following Zero: on the other, the rookie's systems clearly gave Zero a high threat level, given how his system heat and combat readiness increased when Zero was close to him, although the embarrassed, nervous blushing was just excessive realism. Far too human.

On the other, that very neatly paralleled how Zero's systems reacted to him. Trusted known/dangerous unknown. At the same time. Without it being a contradiction at all.

The rookie was new to combat, but he was picking it up fast, so he'd been trained...

_Oh,_ Zero realized, and it was a relief to finally have the kid pegged. _Someone important, is he_? So that was why he had such a half-expert, half-assed knowledge of how to protect valuable people: _he_ was the valuable person that got protected. That was why he'd been trained to fight even though he wasn't expected to actually do it.

At least that, all of him agreed with, as the rookie looked at him, eyebrows raised, wondering if something was wrong: was there a reason Zero was looking back at them instead of moving on?

Big green eyes… The other reploid had those wings, and Zero wondered if the reason he'd decided that the female human was alright, despite being unusually (suspiciously?) non-useless was that she looked sort of like him. Well, a female human version of him. It was mostly the hair, and maybe, maybe something around her eyes was familiar, or at least the _look _in them, but that hair color was borderline-unnatural in a human, and was it really a coincidence that all of it was the exact shade of his own, under the dust?

Did this Neo Arcadia place really worship him _that _much?

Finally, they'd found it.

"Is this the elevator you were talking about?" the female model asked.

Ciel nodded, coming up to look over Zero's shoulder as the rookie hung back, watching the way they had come. "I could never get it to work, so I used an alternate route. It's got an unusual security protocol: I think it was programmed more recently than the security on Zero's status monitoring system."

It took a bit of work to get the abandoned elevator shaft open, and most of it was done on autopilot. Sometimes what he found in his systems surprised him. Since when did he know how to hack? But none of the others seemed surprised. Maybe it was just an installed subroutine or something, and that was why it hadn't been lost with most of his conscious data?

He'd tried to query his fragmented systems, get a list of his capabilities, but he'd gotten only one word when he'd asked what he could do: "_Everything_."

Which was exactly as unhelpful, irritating and worrying as a combat assessment saying that he was the strongest, but for some reason he wasn't surprised. Annoyed, but unsurprised.

When the doors opened, for some reason he moved aside, certain that Ciel would start leaping up them to scout, and when he realized she hadn't the world _tilted _around him.

For approximately 2.5 seconds, 'Ciel' was 'the curious-fun one that likes shiny things and getting them and sparring,' and was there something _wrong _with her, that she wasn't acting the way she should be?

Zero tried to keep a grip on himself, analyzing these reactions, noticing that Lieutenant Lark, the 'nice one that cares and wants to help and isn't normal at all' was where she was supposed to be, a little behind him and safe and the rookie was now 'the kid,' still 'mine' and 'to-be-protected,' and…

Was it memory that made his system assign Ciel the 'fatal damage attained/limited recovery window/most urgent' statuses? That made, for an instant, his sensory data input stop reading her as a living human and start reading her as a reploid corpse?

That instant shattered the illusion, because it wasn't true (couldn't be true). No, that wasn't what had stopped it: One of his system protocols had vetoed it. Not because it had detected an error, like reading one living human and a second living reploid as dead reploids, but because of the way he'd felt? What?

It had _hurt_. He'd cared about them, cared that they were dead, or part of him had. The part that had been trapped in that illusion or system error, hallucination, whatever terminology you wanted to use, had _cared_. They'd died, one by one, and _he wasn't supposed to feel that way_. Feel that kind of pain, except he must have, at some point, because why else would the ghost of that data be in his systems, in his mind?

When had he thought 'my family' instead of 'my people?' His student, his…

Maybe he had felt this pain before, and maybe he was the one who had set up that protocol to keep himself from feeling it again?

What had he forgotten? Did he want to remember, if it hurt so much?

For all he knew, _he_ might be the reason his memories were fried. Reploids could do that, someone he… couldn't place had told him that a long time ago. Destroy painful memories, destroy the self that had done terrible things.

Regardless, if his sensory data could play tricks on him like that, then he wasn't functioning normally, not at all. He was a danger to those around him, he realized, and wondered why his mind hadn't started spinning plans on how to keep the others safe given that, safe from the enemy forces and from him, if it came to that.

_I already considered myself a danger to them,_ Zero realized, as he looked into the shaft himself to try to figure out how they were going to do this with a human in tow. _I consider myself a danger to everything_. So, no change in his status, no need to make plans to compensate for the new data. The _hallucinations_ that might be something else entirely.

He really should care about that more. If any other person had been a danger to those he had chosen to protect, he would have either killed them then and there or wished he could while making plans to work around it. Waiting for the day he could kill them.

Any other entity that could kill without caring, even those under its protection? Well, he'd have to mark them for death. In his eyes, they would have had no right to live. And neither, said his tactical assessments, did innocent people who got in his way, either. If any of these three turned against him, or he against them, he'd kill them and the same oversight system that had kept him from mourning those deaths would ensure that he wouldn't feel a thing. No matter how hard he tried. No matter how much he hated himself for it.

For a short time, he'd felt that they were his family and he would die for them, die to keep them from dying, and apparently he wasn't allowed to feel that way. To feel that the deaths of others were anything other than meaningless.

He'd know that he was a monster, yes, if he killed someone innocent and didn't care, but it turned out that he knew that already. "No," he told the rookie. "Have Lark carry her."

"But…" Reluctantly, the rookie put down the human.

"You can hover, so I want you below us." Zero would have to keep up momentum to climb and even with the upgrades Cinnamon had to work at gaining height: their rearguard needed to be able to pay attention.

As Zero calmly arranged things to take advantage of the fact that the rookie would soak up damage for the human while the other reploid healed him so that he could take more damage, noting that he didn't especially care about any pain the rookie might feel in the process, he had to wonder:

Who would build something like him? What could make an evil like this a necessary one?

And what sort of place, what kind of people could consider something like him, a killing machine designed to be unable to develop a heart, a hero?


	12. Strength To Live

_Black actually sucks for sky camo. They designed an optimal sky camo pattern once, but the pilots painted it over with black because the camo that would have helped them not die (or get shot down in really expensive planes) wasn't kewl enough. Machismo: another word for too dumb to live. _

_If you want to know what sea camo is, think the great white shark. _

_In this 'verse, Ciel got to grow up a bit more confident. She's the genius inventor that made everyone's lives better that lives in a Secret Base in the wastes, with a legendary hero in it - best buried treasure ever! The aftermath of Copy-X didn't end up teaching her that she just made things worse when she tried to do things to solve her own problems, and she wasn't responsible for the deaths of lots of innocent people in the process. She's not arrogant here, but she's aware that yes, she is pretty smart and her work is very important to making everyone's lives better. So she's not going to take being demoted to uselessness (especially on racial grounds, even if the physical limitations are real) the way she does in the game._

_Someone needs to cross this series over, or world fusion it, with _Girl Genius_. Any/all eras, but with the various doctors as sparks. That'd be fun._

_I just got done playing _Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky_, which is a very well-written game except for a bit near the end when the writers picked the _worst possible time _to start using corny Word Salad titles and narmy evil character portraits and ruined an otherwise dramatic and awesome scene. I bring it up because there's a character there, Professor Russel, whose design is probably an Einstein tribute but has a certain resemblance to Dr. Wily, using his powers for good. And my Kalinkamuse approves of the not-Mad Scientist's Adorable Granddaughter being a blonde with a big gun that does not get kidnapped at any point._

* * *

"They took my notes!" Ciel wailed. They'd also taken all of her equipment and torn apart the rest of her house looking for anything useful. The teleport module and communication console were gone, and all her food had been burned, scattered among the sand and otherwise rendered inedible, but, most importantly, "They took my notes! Goddamn cancerous tunnel rats!" Spending all these years in semi-exile, playing hostess only to fellow researchers and hardy waste explorers unsuited to polite company had done terrible things to the young woman's vocabulary. If her audience hadn't included a legendary hero, a reploid that at least _looked _too young to be exposed to such language and her own creation, she would have gone on to elaborate on the drones' construction, parentage, physical appearance, favorite activities and gory fates instead of biting back more curses. Frantically, she dumped the contents of her duffel bag out on the ground, clawing through papers and data cards.

That was what mattered, that was what made Copy-X and Lark's faces pale far more than her language, because she was doing classified research here. Dr. Ciel _was _the cutting edge of Neo Arcadia's technology. If Weil got his hands on the new generator, or the reploid upgrades she'd been working on?

"How bad is it?" Zero asked, jumping up onto what was left of a wall and scanning the area for more mechanaloids or any useful resources. Without a holster, he'd had to loop his hair around the beam saber he'd found. He hadn't tied it, and it looked like it shouldn't stay, but it did.

"I don't know the entire list of what Cerveau took with him. I _think _I packed everything I was working on right now, and I tried to grab everything classified…" She flipped through the stacks hurriedly, verifying that she really had packed certain files. The trouble was that if it didn't occur to her to check for something, that was probably either because she'd forgotten it or she'd assumed Cerveau had packed it in one of those boxes. "All of the papers I made sure to pack are here…" But she had no way of knowing what was neither here nor in Neo Arcadia. "I used my mother's cipher, but it's not really that hard to crack, if you have a good decryption system." Which criminal groups generally didn't have and Weil certainly would.

"Has this cipher been in your family for a long time?" Copy-X asked her, remembering what Phantom had told him about Ciel's ancestry.

She nodded. "All the way back to my ances…" Oh, _damn_. "The one that…" She glanced at Lark. This was classified: Ciel _herself _had only found it out when she'd been given certain materials to help her in her research. "Weil probably already knows how to decrypt it."

Zero scanned the horizon. "Is it windy here in the evenings?"

"No." Ciel shook her head. "Sometimes we get dust devils in the late afternoon, though."

He shook his head and jumped down. "They didn't arrive or leave on foot, and I'm not seeing any landing or takeoff marks." No marks of a makeshift runway, debris blown around by a helicopter's blades, or a rocket's scorch marks. That left teleportation. "Unless someone had a teleport trace on them," in other words, unless pigs flew, "they got away clean."

Ciel shook her head sadly as she put everything back in her bag. "So, what now?"

"Well," said Lark, "I was instructed to carry you to the nearest base if your buffered teleport module was damaged and we lost contact." Creating a way to safely teleport humans was one of the fruits of elf research, but it was extremely costly, either in the lives of elves or energy, infrastructure & specialized teleport modules.

After Ciel's notes, the module allocated here to assure her safety had been by far the most valuable thing in her lab, even counting the small amount of equipment and prototypes the soldiers that escorted Cerveau hadn't taken in the first round.

"How far?" Zero asked.

"Only three hundred miles… Oh." Lark looked at the three of them. "Are you fully flight-capable, or just hover?" she asked Copy-X.

"I'm flight-capable, but…"

"…Not glide-capable," Ciel finished, and grimaced.

"Do you two know each other?" Lark wondered, looking from one to the other.

Ciel looked at Copy-X: what was the official story?

"She's my builder," he told Lark. "I'm one of General Phantom's: he sent me to make sure Dr. Ciel would be safe and help awaken Commander Zero."

"I didn't know Dr. Ciel had built a repl… Oh, right. You're one of General Phantom's." So of course it made sense that it wouldn't be common knowledge. Lark looked him up and down: if he was Dr. Ciel's creation, then he was probably the most advanced reploid in existence, after the Guardians themselves. And Commander Zero. Master X didn't count, of course, since he was the android.

"It will be dark soon, and this is Wasteland." While they were talking, Zero had dug the remains of Ciel's blanket nest out of the rubble. "Tie this over your face." If they couldn't carry her at a high altitude, they'd have to keep her from breathing in as much dust as possible. If the scientist was that much of a VIP, then the last thing they needed was to run into an area with a lot of heavy metals, radiation or other hazards and cut a few years off her life. "If you were supposed to fly her, I assume you have a wind current and environmental hazard map for the area?"

"Yes, Commander Zero."

"Is that three hundred miles as the crow flies or with hazards factored in?"

"That's without hazards and cover factored in. There's a dry seabed only a little out of the way with good cracks." That would make it hard to scan for them. "That works out to more like three seventy-five. Weighted down, I can cover that in…"

"Too long. Does that map of yours include water sources? Any abandoned outposts Weil might not have hit yet?"

"Water, Commander? There's a salt lake fifty miles from here."

"We head there first."

"…Sir?"

"Under optimal conditions, humans can go up to two days without water. Traveling three hundred-plus miles across the wastes isn't optimal conditions." A salt lake was perfect: they'd have to distill the water, but humans needed salt or sugar in order to keep water in their bodies and there wasn't any sugar here, not unless you wanted to try to pick it out of the sand, grain by grain.

"That's on the edge of the Eurasia crash site," Copy-X remarked, having finally managed to pull open his (far more detailed) map files and cross-reference the hazard, habitation & natural resource maps for this sector. "There's a lot of metal dust there, but none of it's toxic." Provided she wore something over her nose and mouth to filter it out when the wind kicked up.

Eurasia… Zero was sure that should mean more to him than a supercontinent, but he couldn't place it. "Is there anything else that might affect our plans?"

"I can only fly during the day, Commander," Lark confessed. "I'm demi-solar."

Zero guessed that meant solar-powered. "Good to know." Now instead of later. "What about you?"

"I'll be fine," Copy-X assured him. "I don't have the restrictions most modern reploids do." Because he wasn't supposed to seem like a modern reploid. "If we're staying low to the ground, I think I could carry Lark as well as Ciel…"

"You're not carrying Ciel," Zero interrupted him. "If you can get a decent altitude, I need you to be our eyes in the sky and start shooting at anything that attacks us _before _it gets in range of these two." Because he doubted that Lark could dodge worth a damn if she was carrying a passenger bigger than she was, and almost as heavy. No matter what gimmick made her flight-capable even with wings like that. "Get up there, and if you don't see anything we have to take care of right now, start heading towards the lake. We'll follow you, but keep an eye on us and don't get too far ahead."

"Yes, sir." The boy nodded and extended those panels again.

Lark looked at them curiously: she had been too busy before, but now that she had the time to pay attention to details that weren't important to the battle at hand she noticed that the black was a recent addition, covering detailed work in other colors.

…Oooh, she realized. She'd heard someone speculate once that Master X had a body double. If it had been a rumor, no one in the joint Zan'ei-Rekku Evacuation and Protection Initiative would have passed it on, but it had just been idle speculation, since they'd been studying methods used to protect important people. No one had taken the idea really seriously, since everyone knew that if someone was going to impersonate Master X as part of a strategy, it would be General Phantom, but those colors, and the way his armor had changed, feather-like pieces sliding out, when he went into combat mode? Dr. Ciel's creation or not, no one would design something like that just for show unless there was a very good reason.

Those were Master X's colors under that black paint.

He didn't look very much like Master X to Lark's eyes: he had none of Master X's presence or serenity. His voice was too boyish. The guardians were supposed to look a lot like Master X too, she'd heard, and Generals Harpuia and Phantom were both, well… Majestic.

Still, she supposed, if he were to take the black paint off, chance his voice print, maybe swap his face with a pre-made mask, he might pass, from a distance or something. If he was General Phantom's, he must have been taught how to act, if that really was his duty, or might be someday.

General Phantom wouldn't have sent a rookie to protect Dr. Ciel, no more than General Harpuia would have. There had to be more to him than met the eye.

"So I'm going to be dead weight, huh." Well, there wasn't much Ciel could do about it. "I'll try not to get in your way too much."

"You can't help being human," Zero said offhand as he watched the rookie climb. He'd been right: the rookie was a far better flier when he wasn't in a confined space. Maybe when they got to the salt lake he could have him scrub that paint off. One thing he knew was that contrary to popular belief, black was a horrible color for stealth in the sky: the colors the rookie had underneath were much better.

"No, but I can help being dead weight," Ciel muttered under her breath. Well, someday she could. Once the emergency was over and Master X gave her permission to work on her own projects. He'd promised that he would someday, in thanks for everything she was doing for Neo Arcadia, and she knew exactly what she was going to do first.

There wouldn't be any shortage of volunteers for the tests.

During the energy crisis, humans had been able to contribute a lot more. Humans were a bad idea for heavy labor since they burned too much energy, but they had very good sensory systems and dexterity, so they did a lot of the detailed work, repairs and so on.

Now that reploids could finally be upgraded with nonessential systems, humans were losing a lot of their advantages. Neo Arcadia only worked because everyone worked hard: to be lazy, much less dead weight, was, well, no decent person would stand for it. It was an _insult_.

She'd heard, even out here (since human senses gave them an advantage in Waste exploration that _used to _outweigh the fact they were in more danger out here than reploids), that a lot of people were very ashamed, feeling like they were living on reploid charity, and Ciel bet that the war would make it a lot worse. Having to just cower back there, without even a weapon, as someone shot at her creation? She'd never felt so useless, so _powerless _in her entire life.

She should have packed a weapon. And water bottles. She'd just thought of her papers and the gear she might need to wake Zero up. If she'd prepared better, they wouldn't have to go out of their way because of her.

If she'd prepared better, Passy wouldn't be…

Suddenly, there was a hand on her shoulder. "Don't cry. You shouldn't waste the water." Zero's tone wasn't joking, exactly, but she had to smile at the absurdity of the last part, knowing he'd meant her to.

"How could you tell?" she wondered, wiping her eyes again. She hadn't sobbed or anything, had she?

"I guessed." From the way her shoulders had hunched in, something humans did to lessen the impact of a blow. …Someone he couldn't place had told him that it meant they either expected someone to hit them, with fists or words, or were hitting themselves.

"Are you alright?" Lark asked Ciel, hovering next to her.

"I'm fine." She'd, she'd just have to get stronger. And smarter, and… She was never going to stand by again, helpless, _useless, _as someone died in front of her. Never again.

She'd just have to find a way.


	13. A World To Save

_Panem et circenses: Bread and gladiatorial games – placating a downtrodden populace with welfare and bloody spectacles that reminds it of how dependant they are on the government and what happens to dissidents. _

_The effects of X and Zero's hibernations are an interesting contrast, aren't they? _

* * *

He stuck close to the side of the ancient… Wall? Crater rim? Bluff? Whatever it was, it gave them cover from at least one direction. The most important direction: the one the wind was coming from.

Copy-X had understood why Zero had gathered up the fragments of Ciel's blankets and made them into a bundle, but he'd still looked odd, running along down there with that slung over his shoulder. Lark had looked even odder, carrying someone larger than she was.

They hadn't run into any mechanaloids, neither Weil's nor the waste's usual hazards, ancient guardians of things long forgotten, people long-dead. Understandable, since Ciel's lab and Zero's hiding place were in the middle of nowhere. Still, none of them trusted it, which was why Ciel had taken so long to fall asleep after Zero had called a halt.

The wastes got hot during the day and cooled down quickly at night: even after Lark had landed so Ciel could ask Zero for those blankets, the night's chill and the chill of the wind Lark was flying into had taken a toll on Ciel, who wasn't a very big human. Bigger than Lark, yes, but Lark was a very small reploid. Lark looked even more like a human child, tucked up with Ciel like that.

That wasn't the most efficient way to warm Ciel up. Larger reploids generated more waste heat, which was one more reason why they'd started being built smaller and smaller over the lean years. Since Ciel's small mass had made it hard for her to retain her body heat, it only made sense that…

Well, alright, he'd admit it: he was jealous. This was his builder, he hadn't seen her in years, and even though most reploids didn't have strong family ties, he'd grown up hearing about the guardians and the real X. None of them were especially likely to hug him, except Leviathan when he did something clever (the kind of thing Fefnir would clap him on the back for), but Ciel had hugged him when he showed up.

Now his builder was snuggling a reploid, even if it was just for warmth, and it wasn't even him. It was someone she had just met.

On the other hand, he did know enough about, well, normal reploid and human mores that he hadn't argued about it. Ciel was in her late teens, and he looked the same age, because that was the age X had been built to look, surprising as it was. She might be his builder, but that actually would have made it even more questionable, if they'd gone into sleep mode curled together like that. It was something that reploids normally only did with, well, lovers.

The fact that Lark was a female model made it not as bad, and the fact that she was a child model made it look ok, even though normally it was a human child that would cuddle a human parent or reploid nurse, at the Fosterage.

X had hugged his children and hadn't cared how it looked, but he obviously wasn't X. Reploids weren't supposed to want hugs all that much, and most of them were made in factories and would never have a builder to cuddle them, so he was sure Lark would have stared at him in utter confusion if he'd volunteered, even if he hadn't admitted the reason why.

He didn't even want to think of how Zero might react.

No: it was alright for human children to be childish, because that was where the word came from. He had to think of how things looked, even though he was here as 'himself' and his behavior wouldn't reflect poorly on Master X and the guardians. Except it would, because they had raised him. Well, X hadn't, but Zero and Ciel didn't know that.

He looked away from them, up at the sky, picking out the too-steady dots of various orbitals and hoping that all of them were either long-abandoned, more debris of centuries of war, or friendly. He'd picked out one that had the right frequency for it to be part of the restored weather control network, which was probably a good sign. Weil hadn't taken control of near-orbit, hopefully.

The operators were probably too busy using the cameras to observe and try to track Weil's forces to pay much attention to one small party of civilians, but whenever the guardians were able to send someone without attracting attention and drawing Weil's forces down on their heads, they'd be able to find them.

He wished he could get in contact with them, but among all those dots up there were signal jammers. Fefnir had told him about them, how during the Maverick Wars there had been enough energy and materials for the governments and the Hunters (it was weird, to think that those hadn't been the same thing) to send up not just weather control, teleportation, communications, weapons and spy satellites, but ones to jam all communications, make them require more energy to work, just _in case _that was how the virus was spreading. To make it a _little _easier to find the mavericks, too. A _little _harder for them to communicate and coordinate attacks.

He could see the logic in it, but… getting the restored weather satellites in place had been expensive enough. Putting _several _networks up there, one of them just on the off-chance it would help? For measurable but small advantages?

The world had been so _rich_ when the Guardians were made.

Eurasia: he still couldn't wrap his head around it. There had been a war on, and they'd still had enough spare resources to send up all that metal, those valuable components, laborers & energy? The crash site was so, so _big_! He'd had the maps in his systems for years, but he'd never really taken a look at them before, never thought about what all that distance really meant, not just in terms of numbers but, well, yes, numbers. _Really big _numbers. _Several times_ their yearly titanium output big.

The crash site was also between them and the district headquarters and they couldn't cut across it, which was what was actually relevant now, but… Wow. Just _wow_.

There were tons of dozens of metals and alloys marked at the crash site. That was the reason Master X had marked it off-limits so that if Neo Arcadia ever needed metal in a hurry, at the expense of desecrating a mass grave… At least it would be there, instead of lining the pockets of illicit grave robbers.

And all of that? Was _what was left_. The virus had used the station to breed, stripped it of enough metals and materials to make enough virus to _blanket the sky_. Cover the stars he looked at now, block all those ancient works. More people had died in that one disaster than all the people alive now put together. A few times over.

Wow.

It was one thing to read books about how once upon a time, the world had been green instead of various shades of brown, tan and grey. The guardians weren't _that _old, even X wasn't _quite _that old, even if he'd been built then, but they still remembered when the world had the energy for big projects, like Harpuia and Leviathan's support systems.

"Zenny for your thoughts?"

"The world is so big," he almost whispered, feeling somehow that it would be wrong to do otherwise in the face of this immensity. To speak normally would have been to deny that it was affecting him, which was obviously nonsense, and to speak loudly, or shout into this immensity? A small speck, trying to pretend that it mattered, that it could make an impression on the wastes and the night with nothing but empty words? Neo Arcadia was huge enough, with all the towers and their nooks and crannies, all the _people_, but it took up only a miniscule percentage of the earth's surface. There were so few people there compared to when people had lived all over the world, instead of one city and a few outposts. "Do you really think it can be fixed?"

"What?" Zero wondered what he meant, but leaned against the cliff face anyway. It was interesting that the rookie's face was actually unguarded for once; that he wasn't thinking about dealing with people and the face he should show the world but the world itself.

"Harpuia and Leviathan were built to fix it, and everyone expects… Master X to do it. Not just to keep everyone alive right now, but to keep making things better. Dr. Ciel's inventions, especially the generators, have made so much difference. If Weil had returned even five years ago, when we'd just started installing them?" Copy-X shook his head. "We've done so much. There are things that, well, it would have been _ridiculous _to suggest them when I was built, or even before Master X disappeared the first time, and we can do them now. And still have the Summer Solstice Gift every year." He was a bit proud of that: X had only been able to have one every other year.

"Gift?"

"Extra energy for everyone. Or it's used for a project to make everyone's lives better." Copy-X explained that, "Neo Arcadia gets a lot of its energy from solar power, and it's hard to store extra, since we only have a few mass battery plants. So, there's more energy around the summer solstice, since the days are longer, and it needs to be used up." Power had to be either used or stored in the instant it was generated: that was physics.

"So reploids either receive extra energy or something to keep them happy? Panem et circenses?" Zero said, frowning. That phrase was from an _old _database. The same one that had tossed up the 'Everything' result, and had the listing for Fortinium. He was still trying to sort through all of it, but he seemed to have three main databases, not counting the one he was building now as he tried to sort everything out.

"No," Copy-X protested, even though he immediately felt embarrassed by the outburst. "No, that's not it at all."

"You know what that means?" Zero wondered, tapping a finger on the hilt of the beam saber he'd found. At a very convenient time.

Copy-X nodded. "Most people wouldn't, but I have a copy of… a very old language database." He hesitated. "There's a lot that I should tell you, but it's classified."

"Too secret even for your top scientist and a member of your own army?" And not an ordinary member, they both knew.

Still, Copy-X nodded. "And we can't leave them behind and go somewhere out of earshot while I explain it to you." Especially since he was almost certain Lark's hearing was top-of-the-line, meaning they'd have to be very far away, too far to hear a scream, much less respond in time. "But you're right; most people wouldn't have known what that meant. Still, you shouldn't say things like that in public. They'd be… really angry, if you implied something like that about Master X. They'd think you were maverick."

"Maverick. That word." It meant something.

"You don't even remember that?" The hero of the maverick wars didn't? Copy-X winced and bowed his head. "I'm sorry. I mean, I didn't even know who _you _were, when I was turned on, and at least my databases and memories were working. I shouldn't be surprised, if you don't even remember Master X."

"'Master' X?" That word: it was not a good word. The fact that the rookie seemed to feel the same sort of hero worship for him as he did for Zero wasn't a good sign, either.

"That's just what everyone calls him. His title is supposed to be Chair of the Restoration Committee, but, well…" Looking away, he drew lines in the sand. "People wanted something to believe in. He didn't like it much, but he stopped arguing." And Copy-X didn't argue, since making people feel better, have confidence in Neo Arcadia used to be his entire job and was still half his job. "He's one of the heroes that saved the world, from Weil and the Mavericks." He looked up at Zero. "You're the other one. You were his best friend: you really don't remember X?"

X. "Say that again? Without the Master in front."

"X," Copy-X said, standing up and moving in front of him, starting to take off his helmet. "Does this help?"

Green eyes: gentle and concerned for him, the stress of constant worry and hard decisions laid aside for now. Tufts of short hair that he knew wouldn't be silky like his own, or excessively soft, either. More 'real,' although part of him balked at defining 'real' as 'like a human's.'

He _knew _this person. The same way as he'd _known _the way that rookie's expression had made him feel. Part of him wanted to touch that hair, to see if he knew the feel of it the same way he knew the feel of those wings, and part of him wanted to bark at him to put his helmet back on, damn it. This place wasn't safe, and… "You… aren't him._" _Zero hadn't just deduced that, he knew it. It probably explained some of the conflicting signals and statuses he'd been assigning the rookie, although it still didn't explain Lark and Ciel. Still, if he'd been confusing the rookie with someone specific, perhaps he could figure out who he had them mixed up with?

"I know." The rookie lowered his eyes, and the submissiveness annoyed Zero partially because some of him approved of it. "I'm his body double. Dr. Ciel built me, for when he needed to do something besides appear and reassure people."

"…I'm not going to be expected to make public appearances, am I?" Ugh, he was. Dammit. He might not remember any, but he knew how this worked.

"Well, I think everyone will be happy if Weil is stopped. Master X wanted you to stay in hibernation, so you'll probably go back."

"What was I in hibernation _for, _anyway?"

Copy-X paused. "Actually, I'm not sure. I thought it had something to do with your original body being stolen, and they used you for the research that created the Mother Elf, but there was that reading that was supposed to be under five percent-"

"The one the… elf died for."

Copy-X nodded. "It's probably classified." Most things were.

"So 'X' should be able to tell me?" That name, and to him it was a Name, not a letter, felt odd to say, as though there was some huge weight there. As though it was supposed to call up so much, was tied to so many of his memories, that he could feel it tugging on them every time he said or thought it. Something vast moving in the back of his mind.

The rookie looked hesitant. "Yes, he would know."

Zero could have said there was something the rookie wasn't telling him. He could have tried to press him until he cracked, and that was also odd, that he thought he could crack someone so earnest, someone who just accepted that things were 'classified.' It was odd that he thought he should have that much control over the rookie, and it was odd that he didn't _want _to press him. Didn't want to make him feel guilty.

Was it because X would have told him anything? "That question you asked me."

It took him a second to remember what Zero meant. "Oh, that." He blushed, which was, as Zero had thought earlier, excessive realism, and yet it looked right somehow, by those eyes.

"I'm not the person to ask," Zero said, although it looked like the rookie had already realized that. "And not just because I have no idea what you're talking about, either the obstacles or what standard you want to 'fix' it to." Given the amnesia. "But I was never a person to ask." He was the one that looked up at the stars now. "One thing I do know for certain is that I'm a weapon. If that's what you want, I can be that for you. If you're expecting anything more, you're going to be disappointed. Don't argue with me. You don't know me any more than I know you, or someone who's just heard of 'Master X' knows X." He really couldn't reconcile those two names, or rather that name with that title. They just seemed like they had to belong to two entirely different people. "But… I'm almost certain that there is someone you should ask, and he would say yes."

"X?"

_That shouldn't be a question. Not even a rhetorical question_, Zero knew, and he knew this meant that something was very, very wrong. "Right. Now get your helmet back on." It was bad enough that they had a human to look after, and a flight-capable model with barely any armor, without the only decently armored reploid among them taking off his…

That was when it hit him. "What happened to all my armor?" He was practically naked! System diagnostics could claim that was some kind of special mesh all they liked, it wouldn't do anything about impacts, or…

Sure, he was lighter, which meant improved dodging, but… They might have a healer, but this was just not acceptable. Even if the rookie had volunteered for it, Zero couldn't let him be the one to soak up all the fire that needed soaking up.

Wait a minute…

"Um…" Copy-X wondered if he should back away, but even if he hadn't had more backbone than that, he knew it wouldn't do any good against Zero. "Zero? Sir?"

"What happened?" Lark asked, poking her head up.

Ciel sat up too, rubbing her eyes. "My great-grandmother," yawn, "designed your new body."

Lark, still booting up, turned to stare at her. "New body?" What?

Zero ignored them. "Take off your armor."

"…What?"

"It should be compatible," Ciel agreed muzzily. "I had to use her notes on the Ultimate armor and… the capsules built one for you too, right?" She tried to blink herself awake, before she became awake enough to really get what was going on as Zero advanced on her creation. "Let me know if there are any problems." Now she was the blushing one, as she turned back over and pulled blankets over her and Lark's heads.

* * *

_My Zero muses, with the exception of the one in _Irregularity,_ have long been of the opinion that there is no functional difference between a reploid wearing human clothing (as opposed to proper armor) and a naked reploid. _

_(By the way, in case one of the implications of human clothing equating to nakedness (or lingerie at the most) occurred to you too, Zeromuse has refused to comment on whether or not he found Iris' beret sexy. I note that apparently Iris got some bodywork done (larger breasts) between Xtreme 2 & X4, which is also the period in which she started wearing the beret… No points for guessing who she was trying to attract.)_

_This is supposedly because for reploids, who have more mass and don't really need to worry about retaining body heat, human clothing protects against jack. Since Zero was assigned to train X and keep him alive, something he takes deadly seriously, X's tendency to wear human clothing during his time off is thus very annoying since it puts him in danger, and something Zero does his best to discourage. _

_If it weren't for the fact that Zero is not the most emotionally demonstrative reploid in the world (not to mention the amnesia), I do think this his reaction to finding out that he'd been stripped of such a large percentage of his real armor by the redesign would be unprintable. _


	14. Ward of Misfortune

_I did an outline for this fic, and it turned out almost as long as a chapter. Of course, a lot of it is that once the groups start meeting up and such, I have to keep track of who is where and so on, and I wrote down important lines/key points. It should end up fewer chapters than it looks like, especially the whole final boss battle part. I am kind of surprised by someone, not that they showed up (that was planned from the beginning) but that they contributed to the final boss battle. I was like, "Man… When did _you _gain some perspective on your life… Oh, riiiight."_

_The fog of war meant I needed a complicated outline to keep track of it all. There was so much going on at one point that I realized that I'd lost track of where Copy-X would be for a few paragraphs/about five very busy real-time minutes._

_Speaking of people intended to be X-clones who should have gotten a chance to matter more, Iris and Colonel will be showing up and contributing. I wouldn't call them main characters, but I wouldn't call them a cameo, either: they'll be in more than one scene._

_Also, it amuses me how many people want Zero's body (well, bodies), for all sorts of reasons._

* * *

Copy-X normally didn't even take off his helmet, because it wasn't dignified for Master X to go around bare-headed and he would have gotten yelled and glared at by various Guardians because of safety. He hadn't minded taking it off to try to remind Zero: after everything Master X had done, and Zero had done, he felt like he owed it to them, to try to help. He was aware that his copy of X's armor was thicker than most other Neo Arcadian reploids. Even the guardians had stripped down and changed to lighter armor because of the energy crisis.

Actually, Copy-X's armor wasn't as solid as X's had been, because space had to be made for the facsimiles of the Ultimate armor, as well as Ciel's Seraph armor.

Zero had disapproved of what that did to its structural integrity, and Ciel had stuck her head up to defend herself, even though she couldn't say that the real reason was that she'd needed to have there be multiple armors without actually building multiple armors. Since the real X's new armors had been found on the battlefield and so on, so she couldn't just have sent Copy-X to Neo Arcadia with a couple suitcases full of spares.

At least Zero had given Copy-X one of the blankets, and he'd wrapped it around himself and _hated_ the way he was blushing. Hated hated hated it. If he'd been able to carry himself with stoic poise and so on he could have retained some dignity and, by virtue of ignoring it, made it as though this wasn't happening. He bet Zero could have seemed entirely dignified and above it all even as he took off his own armor to put on Copy-X's, as though he didn't care about the people looking at him because he was Zero and they were beneath his notice, especially if they were going to do something as tasteless as gawk.

It was easy to act with proper dignity when he was 'in character,' because then he wasn't himself, he was Master X, who wouldn't mind about things like that. Master X would have joined in the debate about sizes and other technical details, or at least made comments and laughed at Zero's frustration before saying something to defuse it.

When he was Master X he had to worry about damaging his reputation and the city's confidence, but it wasn't really him out there, so none of it embarrassed _him_. The trouble was that since Master X was so open and honest, Ciel had set all of this body's emotional display settings to…

Settings.

He had settings.

_Settings_.

Most Neo Arcadian reploids weren't really all that customizable and didn't care about it to begin with. Most of them couldn't blush in the first place – Lark could, but that was rare and more evidence that the child-sized reploid was someone's custom model, the kind of labor of love some scientist had spent a few months working on. Had any of the researchers lost a daughter recently? No, it would have been a few years ago. Building time, then however long it had taken Phantom to notice her, training time, whatever she'd done to get promoted: she was probably older than he was, although he'd bet not by much, otherwise her cheeks would be more scratched up. She'd been out in the sand a few times, but not enough to get more than a few scrapes or to spend the money to get her face refinished. As it was, she looked a little freckled.

And Phantom was right: he really was too easily distracted. Leviathan was also right, that he needed to respect himself more, let himself come first sometimes. Because he'd let himself be distracted by thoughts of his (borrowed) people and his new friend from the fact that his emotional display settings were _settings_.

In other words, _he could turn the Light-damned blushing off_.

Of course, the instant he thought that, his inner Harpuia was giving him a folded-arm _look _for taking his family name in vain, like Copy-X was one of those annoying cultists that worshipped X, and his creator and direct creations by extension.

Light was his name too, they'd all said, because he was family. Did that make him… Something Ciel-Light? Sometimes humans ended up with as many as six hyphenated names in the databases, because it was important to keep track of the gene pool even though problem genes could be edited out. Not that they used all of them, but keeping track of family was important.

He suddenly realized that he had no idea what his creator's first name was, or if she had one, although this probably wasn't the time to ask, because Ciel was watching Zero try to cut Copy-X's armor with that beam saber, and he didn't want the ancient's hand to slip. Yes, he had very good self-repair systems, and Zero did too, so the armor would be taken care of, but that beam saber was a legendary weapon and Copy-X was hell to build armors for. And that was a word Fefnir didn't use all _that _lightly.

Of course, Ciel could do it, but not in the middle of the desert with only the parts that made up his and Zero's armors to work with. And when they did get to a lab, building the legendary hero a good armor would be far more important than building him one. Ciel was blushing and apologizing for her ancestress obviously not consulting Zero on the hibernation armor design, and for a moment he wondered if he should turn the blushing back on, so she didn't feel like she was the only one being embarrassingly overwhelmed by all this.

"It's just not going to fit. Even if I could cut it, and the seam did heal, it would render the wings useless." There just wasn't any way to cut the armor that wouldn't go through one of the wing panels, and they'd probably end up fused to the other side of the cut if Zero left it to automatic systems that didn't have a plan for the armor installed. "We need that flight capability."

"I'm sorry," Ciel said again.

"No, I'm sorry." Zero grimaced. "I thought they'd be smaller than I am. I have three… four… four and change physical design plans on file. Although most of them aren't very detailed."

All three of them stared. He'd been remodeled _that _often? Remodeling was expensive! Still, the world had been rich back then, and he was one of the great heroes. It must have been worth it.

"All of them but this one are larger than he is." He nodded towards Copy-X.

"Reploids used to be built larger," Ciel confirmed. "We've got better parts now, and we try to use fewer of them. It's more efficient that way."

Again, Zero didn't seem pleased by the idea that modern reploids had fewer functions. Copy-X decided that it was probably best to just wait until they got to Neo Arcadia, so he could see for himself. He was proud of his city. Well, not that it was _his _city, but he did live there.

He'd probably just thought of it that way because he was used to being Master X, and then he thought of it that way. His city full of his precious people, all those lives that had been saved, their children and their children's children, reploids that were being built now that would hopefully never have to be so energy-starved they could barely think during lean winters, not and get their work done. Humans that would never collapse from low blood sugar. But they'd managed, and the city had managed, because of everyone working together. It hadn't always been that way, there had been riots and starvation at the beginning, according to the Guardians, but things were better now.

"If I cut it and let it join, the seam would be a weak spot, but cutting some of it out: there's no way the flight capability would survive. Unless there's been some technical miracle?"

Ciel almost pouted, displeased with herself, because technical miracles were her thing.

"I take it that means no." Zero didn't glare at her, but he looked like he wished he could glare at someone for this bullshit. "My focus is offense, not defense. X has better armor than I do, even without this, but I'm a close combat…" He froze, listening. "I'm going to have to stay with the energy pistols awhile longer."

Once again, Copy-X hadn't noticed that his systems were trying to warn him until after Zero had already picked up the approaching danger.

Forming a charged shot without his armor on was wasteful, because it damaged his arm, but the best defense was a good offense, especially when he probably didn't have time to put his armor back on. It was a better idea to be able to instantly vaporize anything that got a clear line of sight.

Lark was trying to untangle herself from the blankets and get airborne as Zero ran up the cliff face behind them, moving fast and gracefully enough the sandstone crumbling and sliding down as he stepped on it didn't really slow him down. The dash boots helped.

"I hope it's not my fault," Ciel said, finding herself a corner to sit in and getting out the pistols Zero had given her. "I should have burned everything in that cipher before we went down there, but it was one thing after another. And Cerveau normally thinks of those things." It was her job to come up with brilliant stuff, and it was a twenty-four seven job since there was so much that needed inventing.

"If he'd sending mechanaloids after us on purpose, it might be for Zero, if he knows about him, or me. Master X is working on something, so I was the one that talked to him. He figured out that I wasn't Master X." I already messed up, so don't feel bad if he figures out from that cipher that you're Arciel's descendant.

"But what if he finds out about Zero because he sends something after me?" Ciel chewed at her lip, and lowered her voice. "He can't be at a hundred percent, not if he's getting mixed up about his body image. That's trouble with his readouts and situational awareness, not just his memory. And…"

"Phantom said we'd be safe with him," Copy-X interrupted her. "Absolutely safe. And Phantom _never _says that." Well, not exactly, but he didn't want Ciel to worry. "He's _Zero_."

"Yeah? And Weil's got…" Ciel put work into not being superstitious. She was a scientist, like her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother. She'd promised herself, and Master X, that she was going to believe in herself, and not trust that he would make everything okay. Not _make _him, or her own creation, make everything okay. People weren't symbols, they weren't objects that could be replaced. Losing Passy had just driven it home to her.

But they couldn't afford for this to go wrong, and she didn't want to bring ill luck down on them, so she still crossed her fingers over her heart before saying, "You know. _That_." She seemed to expect that Copy-X would instantly know what she was talking about, but honestly he didn't. Weil might have lots of things. Hidden factories? Sealed war reploids, waiting for the day they'd be reactivated? So Ciel had to say it. Whisper it, rather. "_The God of Destruction."_

Oh. "Well, if we're talking about gods…_" _He looked up at the cliff, the direction Zero had gone.

"You heard what he said. The body she built for him isn't any good."

"You can't blame yourself for that."

"But what if he loses because of my family? Like you could have… Because I screwed up when I built you."

Copy-X decided to ignore that change of subject. "There's also the Guardians, although they don't like being called that. Well, except Leviathan. And Fefnir and Phantom think it's funny sometimes."

Ciel didn't press the point, but added, "And Master X, but it's not fair. To treat him like that. We're having to go out of our way because of me! What if Zero never gets to him because of me and my family cipher and the designs and… I know I'm being stupid."

"I think I'm glad, actually."

She stared at him, almost glaring, to tell him to knock it off with the platitudes. How could anyone be glad to be whined at?

"That you're telling me this. Listening to things like this is what family is for. Even the Guardians worry sometimes, and they can't talk about it with just anyone because then the people would worry. Even Master X worries sometimes." Or so he'd been told. "You built me, so… I guess I'm happy that we can talk like this."

"I'm sorry," she said, relaxing a bit since the firing had already stopped and they could hear Zero's footfalls heading back. "I didn't even think of that. I just wanted someone to talk at, since Cerveau isn't here and Passy... I didn't do it because you're family, and I should have." She should have remembered that he was special. "Well," she said, smiling. "I'll make sure to gripe at you from now on."

"Sure," they heard from above them. Zero finished the sentence after jumping down off the ledge: Ciel reflexively shielded her eyes from the sand the landing kicked up. "After he puts his armor back on."


	15. Swords & Plowshares

'_There's no water shortage here, and it's muggy enough that showering twice a day is a good idea.' - For me, after growing up in California where there are droughts and saving water is so important, going somewhere else and being told that was something of a mind screw. It made sense, since the house I was staying in had its own well, so the water didn't even need to be paid for, and the local water table was in absolutely no danger (not to mention the climate really was that miserably humid), but I still felt vaguely that it was wrong on some level._

_I use that to construct Neo Arcadia's cultural view re. wasting food, energy and such: you don't. You just don't. Even though the government isn't wasting tons of energy and preventing expansion of their resource base by murdering reploids, they've still got an expanding/recovering population and the early years were a scramble for survival, which formed the culture. Weil's drones _deliberately ruining food, _and Copy-X could make a pretty accurate estimate of just how much energy it took to produce that food,_ _would have been seen as proof he really was just insanely evil and wrong if Zero cared, Copy-X didn't already know that, Ciel wasn't concerned about her work (and Neo Arcadia's survival) more than her personal survival & Lark, well… _

_By the way - I started talking with a reviewer, and now we're writing a fic together via rp. It's on her account since she's the one doing all the editing and real work involved - I have tons of RPlogs that could be turned into fic, mostly with the excellent Nemi, but I'm too lazy to strip the formatting and write transitions and scenes covering stuff that we didn't RP out since it was boring to do that when we knew what would happen anyway. Too many projects as it is._

_There's a link to the fic on my profile - the other author's penname is Haruna Rei, the same person that did the Classic art. It's a Classic AU along the lines of EXE, but in this verse it's nanite medtech that the doctors went into instead of robots or the internet. Draws a lot on Powered Up & the Megamix manga. We've specced out past the eighth game, and we're about done covering the first, although she's keeping a backlog of chapters so it will update regularily despite the fact our internets are unreliable. The first game-equivalent is mostly establishing the characters, world and fundamental conflicts, as well as a bit of foreshadowing (and battles, of course). The second will start with the revealing, and we're hoping that the OMFG quotient of 3-plus will be quite satisfyingly high. I'm liking this version of Forte, and I've only gotten to use him in a few non-canon snippets with Nemi-chan so far. _

* * *

"Put that there and… Got it." Ciel looked up, frowning. "If we had enough time, it would heat up naturally, but…" They were supposed to be in a hurry. So all the ambient light and heat energy here, all this sun, they wouldn't have time to use it. Instead, they'd have to generate the heat themselves.

Even though Copy-X and Alouette would use this solar power to replace anything they used boiling the water to distill it, and Zero had just said it would be fine when Ciel asked about his beam saber, it still rubbed her the wrong way. Drawing on the city's or a reploid's power when you didn't have to, was, well, wasteful. Especially when there was all this sun.

It went against all her instincts as an engineer to look between her creation's face, as he held the device they'd constructed (from scavenged parts – there were always bits and pieces to scavenge, if you knew how to find ruins), and Zero's beam saber, trying to decide which would be not the least costly way to heat the water in order to distill it so she could drink it, but the fastest and safest.

The design of the device, potential weak points in the metal (once the actual boiling started, she'd go elsewhere and her creation would let her know if it exploded)… She could build a solar-powered steam engine here, with not a lot more work, _forget _just wasting the steam energy by letting it cool into drinking water.

This was like the time one of the people at the crèche had given her a book with sentences of three words, none of them more than two syllables, and not listened when she said she could read actual books, and wanted one because she was really desperately bored. So of course she'd had to sneak out and find something to _do _with all that mental energy.

Now, she had to build something that was less good than she could build, and all that waste! Draining a reploid's power (since Zero's beam saber recharged from his own power supply, or that was what made sense) to make water for her just because she'd been an idiot and forgotten to pack water bottles? She understood the circumstances, it was logical, but it still made her want to tear her hair out with frustration.

So now her creation was giving her that concerned look, the one Cerveau had when she acted in a way that made him wonder about her blood sugar and check to see if she'd forgotten to eat again. Although his was more honestly curious and wondering if something was wrong, while Cerveau's was 'not this again,' 'you know better than this' and 'I'm worried that you keep doing this to yourself.'

Cerveau would have been right, but the fact she hadn't eaten wasn't an oversight (alright, failing to pack some just in case had been an oversight), but because they didn't have any food with them. She didn't feel hungry, but she almost never felt hungry, especially not when she was working on a project (and all this was one big project: it helped to think of it that way), since she didn't pay attention to her body when her brain was busy. Zero was right though, she really did need water, and, and aargh!

Outwardly, she took a calm, deep breath and asked him to, "Be careful when you're channeling plasma through your hand armor without forming a buster? I didn't get a chance to really test out that capability." She'd tried to include it because it was a skill X had demonstrated, on video so people who hadn't taken as many notes as she had might still know about it, but it was still fairly obscure, and she had to wonder why he hadn't used it more, since being able to melt foot and handholds into walls seemed very useful. Maybe it was hard to switch from that configuration to a buster in a hurry, so it was a bad idea when he was fighting?

"Well, I'll be trying for heat, not actual plasma." He was obviously waiting for her to leave, since, well, heating up possibly-flawed metal (and the salts wouldn't help) and water wasn't especially safe. It rubbed her the wrong way, leaving someone in danger because of one of her creations, but it made sense. Worst case scenario, he'd get scratched. She could lose her valuable little head.

"Let me know if anything goes wrong?"

"Of course." He smiled at her. "This is our first family project, remember?"

"Right!" Aww, he made her want to hug him, except he was holding bits in place and that might mess something up. Some of the notes on X's design had speculated that might be an intentional effect on Dr. Light's part: she had to admire good engineering. "We'll fix it together." Just like they'd built it together, Lark standing guard while Zero went to go look for parts. "Ok, I'll go give Zero back his beam saber."

She preferred the hard-packed parched earth of the wastes closer to her base to the shifting sands here. It made it really hard to walk around, when it was always sliding under her feet, especially when she tried to climb up a dune.

Zero was actually two dunes over: he'd picked the highest vantage point around while Ciel and Copy-X worked in a low spot, at the edge of the salt lake. Lark had frowned and said her maps needed updating: there should be salt flats here, not dunes. Of course, sand moved a lot, and it was really windy here.

"Here's your beam saber back."

"Keep it," he told her, scanning the horizon. "Figure out someplace to hide it and keep it."

When she didn't respond, he finally turned to look at her. "What?"

"It's 21XX make, definitely." The design was clunky, and comparatively wasteful, but _powerful_. "_Early _21XX. If it weren't for the fact that we just randomly found it there," when a large mechanaloid, part of an old defense system that Ciel had never noticed because it had never noticed her, woke up and attacked Zero, "I'd say that it absolutely had to be yours. And maybe the enemy there was a test, you know? The energy pistols didn't work on it, and even my copy of the X-buster didn't, so maybe it really is your saber. Maybe it was left there so that no one else could walk out of there carrying your body."

"An enemy only I could defeat?" He shook his head. "Or anyone else who could use my saber. Not to mention, what if 'Master,'" the word sounded almost sarcastic, but not enough to offend her on X's behalf, not coming from him, "X needed to get me out of there for some reason?"

"He could use the beam saber."

"Then why didn't he keep it?" Zero frowned, in that way that meant he had caught something, or maybe a better way to put it was that he'd become aware that there was something _to _catch and pull to the surface in his mind, but it wasn't cooperating when he tried to grasp for it. "He should have kept it." The sort of familiar annoyance in his voice made Ciel have to try very hard not to giggle. "What?"

"You sounded like Cerveau. When he tells me to do something a thousand times, and I don't, because… Lots of reasons. I don't mean to put myself in danger, or not take care of myself, but there's me, and then there's my projects," so beautiful, the power to change the world, to fix everything, "and then there's everybody. All the people that need energy, need better ways to raise crops, need better air filtration and surgical equipment. Sometimes I just don't think of myself, but sometimes I do, and then… It's not that I don't think that I matter, it's just that I'm only one person, and there are so many other people out there that matter, you know?" So her own welfare wasn't going to override all of that, even when Cerveau was right, that it should, because they needed her inventions.

"No. I don't," he said, frustrated but in a different way. "The more I figure out about my programming, the less I like it… Don't ask," he told her. "I know what you're talking about, or… I've seen it before."

"Master X." Of course. "…You were kind of like his Cerveau, then, huh." She'd never thought of it that way.

"Cerveau?"

"Dr. Cerveau. He's my partner, I mean research assistant partner." Absolutely not anything else, no matter what that reporter had said. "I'm not worried about him, he's fine, he made it back to Neo Arcadia and he's working on upgrades for General Phantom's people, so he's definitely fine. He's still probably worried about me." She fidgeted with her foot, turning it in the sand. "But he said that probably his most important job was thinking about me for me, since I didn't think about myself. Even though I should, because my life affects a lot of other people's lives."

"Your inventions."

She nodded.

"I think you're right. You… You're like him. Both of you, actually." Like creator, like creation? "Except you're wrong about the beam saber."

"How are you so sure?"

"Because when I look at it, it's like I can see it in someone else's hands. It belongs to someone very important."

"X? He used it, during the Elf Wars." _Carried it for you, in your absence. So it was like you were fighting beside him still. _She'd always loved that part.

"…Maybe. But… Someone with hands larger than mine." He held them up, as though he could remember that way. "Someone important gave it to me, to carry. For someone else. It was… an honor." He shook his head. "Why can I remember this, and not how to use the blasted thing?"

"Feelings?" Ciel suggested. "Maybe the easiest memories are those linked to strong emotions? Because the world has changed, and your body was changed, so it's hard for those stimuli to be exactly the same as in the past. But your heart hasn't changed."

"I'm not sure about that…"

"Well, except for hibernation effects," she corrected herself, before he got worried. "That's perfectly normal. Well, not _normal_, barely anyone has actually gone through hibernation because it's not really ever been practical," during the Maverick Wars, try to make a reploid immune that way and the mavericks would find it and open it up, and now there wasn't any need for it, to have reploids lying there, using almost as much power up thinking as when they were awake. "But everyone knows about it." Because of Master X, it was part of the legend. "Oh, and there might be interface issues. With the emotional display system. You know why humans say 'listen to your heart?' It's not because our hearts actually think and make us feel emotions, it's because heart rate changes when you're angry or excited or calm, and so on. So there's the way you feel because of the thing itself, and then you can get even more so because your heart is racing and such. Biofeedback loop… What?"

Zero's tone seemed somehow careful. "I thought you built… technology."

"It's important! Because of what I was telling you about. Feedback loops are an even bigger problem for people who aren't biological, you know. Like, if something makes a reploid angry, and they go to combat readiness, they'll be more alert. Meaning they'll be paying even _more _attention to the thing that makes them angry, so they'll get angrier. That's why I said you might have interface issues. Because it's a different body. Your heart would still feel the same way about things, but the way that… affects everything might be different. The way your systems react, and the way your mind reacts to _that_." If their designer messed _that _up badly enough, the poor reploid would go irregular unless someone caught on in time.

"That… makes more sense than it should." He still looked at her almost warily. "I think you're right, that feelings trigger memories, or ideas of memories. You reminded me of someone."

"Someone bad?"

He didn't sugar-coat it. "Very." He still patted her on the shoulder, which would have seemed condescending if he didn't have every right to condescend, in this case. She was under his protection, after all. "Don't worry about it." He nodded, as though coming to a decision. "We're cutting across Area Zero."

"…What? Why?"

"Lark managed to figure out how to give me her maps. Your base wasn't in a good location, or rather the place I was sealed was in a _very _good location. Just for purposes that are counterproductive right now. With my early warning systems, twisted metal canyons and craters are good. Open terrain like this is bad. It evens the odds too much, and you're human. All it takes is one clear shot. If Area Zero, the Eurasia crash site, still is… what I feel it is, you'll be safe there. And, once we're on the other side, there's an area with a limited ecology." In other words, they had a chance of finding some things that were edible while they headed towards a base.

"But it's forbidden."

He chuckled. "You're the genius here. Who forbade it, and why?"

"Master X, and because of scavengers… _Ooooh_," she said, enlightened. Normally, Master X's decrees were, well, _Master X's decrees_. He didn't make them for small reasons, and he wouldn't forbid people from gathering resources for the city unless there was a _very _good reason.

Still, this was Commander Zero, and if he thought Master X would think it was okay, then he was probably right. And they weren't going there to steal metal or anything.

"Exactly." He nodded. "Keep the beam saber. You probably won't need it, and if you do, it still isn't likely to do you much good." A human within grabbing range of a hostile reploid was a dead human unless they had an elf, and Ciel, well, she didn't. Not anymore. "It will only help you if it's a surprise. If they think you're already subdued." Like if they'd grabbed her, and were too focused on threatening Zero, Copy-X or Lark with what would happen to her if they did anything foolish to pay attention to a weak little human. "Just… don't lose it. If it were just mine…" He shrugged. He didn't think he'd ever been one for personal possessions. "But it isn't."

She gripped it tightly and swallowed, nodding. Zero might not think this beam saber was a big deal, but he didn't remember the weight of history it contained. He might not care even if he did, because it was his history. "I won't."

* * *

_And, finally! They're heading where they need to be for the next part, so it's back to Neo Arcadia to find out what the fic's theoretical second main character has actually been doing, check on, or check back with, some of the other Zero series characters & find out what is going on with the actual war in the absence of Zero, X, Omega, Copy-X and half the Guardians. _


	16. Quality of Mercy

_Because when a population is small and doesn't have a lot of access to information (or mandatory statistics instruction – correlation does not imply causation!), superstitions and so on will spread. Rabbit's feet, for example._

_Are not very lucky for the rabbit._

_When people do the amount of downright _mythic _stuff X and Zero do… Consider Augustus Caesar's reaction to finding out that he'd been deified after securing the peace of Rome: 'And what am I supposed to do if some child prays to me to heal their sick mother?' __Superstition as technology, trying to use tools and memes to affect what happens, both in the outside world and in the mind and its ability to deal with stuff, especially fear._

_There's a lot of stuff in Zero series where once you rule out the 'someone was stupid' explanation, you're left with the Fridge Nightmare Fuel/Fridge Tear Jerker explanation. If you haven't noticed it, in this fic, Weil is evil. Not in the same way as Sicks from Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro (I am in awe of the author of that series), but I am attempting to come within shouting distance of that kind of Evil deserving of a capital letter._

_As I point out, especially during the first couple chapters, Weil created a Hope Spot and then basically broke the world. Few lived through it, very few are alive to this day and all of them are fucked up because of what they saw and did. It explains quite a bit about the society in the games. _

_If you do want to figure things out, or rather less horrible things, here's a hint for the second part: Biometals. One specific biometal in particular._

* * *

He'd come to talk to each of them, one by one, after he and Zero had defeated them all. Eight against two wasn't very good odds, not when those two were Commanders X and Zero, or whichever of their many titles was getting the most use these days. Master X. The Gods of Life and Death. Although right now, more shrines were being dedicated to Zero as the God of Victory than Death, he was certain. Ribbons of red and gold instead of red and white, praying that the war would be over soon. Blue and white, praying that their loved ones would live.

Not blue and red, not Master X's other aspect. No one would pray for children right now, not at a time like this. Not given the births Weil had ensured. As for finding love… Although they must be praying that Master X's would return, when he was needed most.

It was superstitious nonsense. It was the kind of thing Weil would have liked to encourage, because when people put faith into gods that weren't gods instead of themselves, that faith could be broken, and then they'd have nothing to believe in but the devil.

But he remembered what Zero's return had done to the war. He doubted that there was a single one of those myths that didn't have some truth to it. After all, when someone really had risen from the dead, when someone really was immortal?

When Master X had come before him that day, and granted him not rebirth, but life? The ability to live on, with what he had done?

"I'm afraid," he'd said, that day. "That I'm losing the strength it takes to be merciful. Because letting someone live is always a risk, you see. It's a risk that more innocents will die. It's a risk that my hopes will be dashed, and I'll have to kill you anyway. Mercy is strength, the only kind of strength that matters. The strength to fight to save a life. The strength to bear the consequences. And I am tired, Childre."

Most reploids couldn't estimate human age worth a damn, but that had been one of his functions. The green eyes set in that fresh young face were far, far too old. As though time had eaten away at him from the inside. Time and murder and countless atrocities, witnessed with those leaf-green eyes.

He hadn't said anything, just looked at Master X with a broken resignation that seemed, oh, what was that word? Yes: emo. Emo by comparison. He'd known that he would be executed and it was exactly what he deserved. He'd known that for some time now, but he hadn't done anything. What right did he have to be a hero, by that point? Even if he'd rebelled, it would have been over in an instant: Weil had them all guarded by baby elves, selfish and cruel parodies of children that didn't have consciences to be bothered by what they saw. Even if he had actually managed to accomplish anything, it wouldn't have meant anything. Not next to what he'd done, what he'd overseen. And then Weil would have revived him, and forced him to do more of it.

What he'd been created to do, the animal Weil had modeled him on… It was obscene, all of it. Something like him should be wiped from the earth, by plasma shot or blade of light.

Why hadn't they killed him then? He shouldn't have been allowed to exist, not even one more second. He couldn't bear to, and that was why he was the one to look away, to close his eyes and try to curl up in shame.

"You know, all of you, that what you did was wrong. You've looked into the heart of evil for years: you know what it is. You know the depths that people will sink to, when they don't know any better, when they're just following orders, when they're afraid of what will happen, when something in their minds and bodies drives them to it. You know that you will never be able to undo what you have done," Master X said, and though his voice was calm, and even, it was also sad. "But you wish you could. All of you long to die, as though that would undo one single thing. As though it would make the world safer if you were removed from it."

Of course the world would be safer if he were killed: he'd wondered, then, what X could possibly be getting at.

"The way you feel, right now: all the things you have felt, for all these years? You will never forget them. And that is why," Master X said, and stepped closer, close enough Childre could feel his presence the way he'd feel a baby elf, and yet so different, "I need you. I need all of you."

He'd opened his eyes, shocked, and Master X had met them again. "All that time, once you understood, you wished that someone would save you. And Weil knew it. That was what he wanted, for you to commit horrible crimes and suffer for them, knowing your guilt. But your punishment, your suffering, didn't make anything better, did it? The only use for punishment is to teach someone a lesson, and you learned your lesson long ago. You wanted someone to kill you, to grant you the 'mercy' of death, and save those you were forced to kill. To harm," Master X corrected himself, because Childe's task hadn't been killing. He'd, he'd taken care of them as best he could, until he'd realized they really didn't want that, and it would be kinder to treat them… in a way Weil would have approved of, because then they had a chance of dying. Of escaping. The way he couldn't, because the baby elves _watched_ him, all the time, and they could bring back the dead, and then Weil would pay attention to him, and then there would be nothing else he could do for them, with even more chains placed upon his mind.

"You wanted mercy, for their suffering and yours to stop. You wanted justice, _real _justice, a chance to undo what you had done, to make things _right_." Not Weil's twisted version of justice. "To fix things," Master X said, and smiled the smile of someone who thought that was an impossible dream, but a sweet one. Cute, childish and enviable. "What I am about to do is very cruel, because you've suffered enough, and I am going to prolong your suffering."

He'd been too afraid to ask.

"I am going to offer you mercy. Some of the last mercy I have to give, and you will not waste it," he said, eyes distant, as though he could see the future. "Because you _know _what it is to have sinned. You know that you have no right to claim to be better than anyone else. You will look at those who come before you, those who have committed crimes, and compared to you? The worst they have done: it will all seem so petty. Minor. Laughable. You will know that just making them suffer will accomplish absolutely nothing. You will know that they can be saved. That almost _anyone _can come to realize that what they are doing is wrong. You will be _gentle _with them," he whispered, and maybe there was a trace of love left there, in that heavy sadness. "You will be _gentle _with them, when I can't. And maybe, when you begin to forgive yourselves. When you realize that even though you can't pay anyone back for what you've done, you're paying it forward, that for every life you've harmed, it's possible to give someone help… Then, I think, I will be able to find the strength in me to have mercy, once again."

To hope, and risk having those hopes dashed once again, because sometimes, hope really was rewarded.

So, he'd lived. And he'd judged. And he'd worked, because Weil had done the best he could to kill everyone competent, so the ability to run a large operation was in short supply. As was a knowledge of how to keep humans alive, and yes, they _did _need to find some way to produce animal protein, and starches were not always a substitute for fats, unless they wanted their humans to have the _intelligence _of animals, without the building blocks their bodies needed to build adequate brains. So somehow he'd ended up being the person everyone referred to when child welfare came up.

It was almost enough to believe that there really was some entity governing karma out there, and they were almost as evil as Weil, except that if anyone was actually responsible, it was Master X.

And himself.

Because it hurt when he saw them smile at him, when they called him Bun-Bun and gave him random gifts that had been in their pockets (sometimes illicitly, if they'd ended up in his office).

It was how he'd learned that there was such a thing as a good kind of pain. When he watched them grow up, and they weren't _broken_, he could see what they would have been. What Weil would have wanted to do to them, or what might have happened without anyone watching out for them, in the scramble for survival and keeping workers well enough to work.

So here he was, with one of those little shrine-boxes on one of the shelves that held those gifts, from children and people who had been children. Because they'd said that he should have someone to watch over him, even though that was obviously ridiculous. Master X kept an eye on all of them, inspected them yearly just so that they could feel safe, that there wasn't anything hidden in their systems that might make them Weil's again.

So here he was, looking at it, knowing all of the ribbons that were inside it and what they meant. He'd looked at it and ended up wishing, praying, whatever you wanted to call it, before. Not to Master X, but for him. And he was getting better: since his return his smiles had become less and less fake, and sometimes his eyes seemed _young_. He wasn't the only one that thought that Master X had unsealed Zero, just for a few months. Just to remind himself. Just to have some happiness and remember that it was possible. It wasn't as though it was that dangerous. It wasn't as though he didn't deserve that risk.

So here he was, with his fingers crossed over his heart, not to pray, not to wish, but to remember. Because Master X had never been a commander per se. A strategist, yes, but during the maverick wars and against Omega his task had been that of a one-man army. Troops would have been a liability against Sigma or baby elves: he might as well have said, 'Here, have some free cannon fodder to attack me with.' So he'd trained the Seventeenth to look after themselves when he was gone, preferably by blowing anything threatening up before it got close enough to even look at them funny, while he went to go save the world. Again.

So no, it wasn't odd at all that no one could get in contact with him right now, and he hadn't even tried, because Master X had more important things to do than waste his time reassuring someone like him.

Weil was back.

On some level, he'd known it would happen. No, on two levels: there was still a part of him that was terrified that he would never be free of Weil, that even Master X's blessing was an illusion. That someday he would wake up and Weil would be standing over him, baby elves flanking him, and _smile_.

He didn't think he could protect himself from Weil. And if he couldn't even protect himself, how could he protect anyone else? But there were millions of lives in Neo Arcadia, humans he'd watched grow up and newbuilts that had grown out of doing damn stupid things, and someone had to protect them. If anything happened to them, if what Weil _dreamed of _happened to them?

If this hope, if this redemption, this precious gift and great burden he had been given was stolen away from him, smashed and perverted and _mocked_?

…if he was used to hurt them?

It terrified him. And he couldn't let himself be trapped by fear, not when they needed him. So he had to believe that they were safe. That someone else would, could, make sure they were safe, so it wasn't all in his weak hands.

Weil had taken away their ability to believe in themselves and their futures, but Master X had defeated him before, Master X and Zero.

Better to believe in that than in Weil. Better to pray to someone who had too many burdens as it was than to wait in fear, believing in Weil's inevitable triumph.

He hated his weakness, but even if he was Weil's creation he was still a reploid, still a child of X, and so…

Master X would not begrudge him this hope.

* * *

His fingers were twitching.

Not when he focused on keeping them still or did something in specific with them. Not yet, at any rate. Still, sometimes, at odd moments, he'd find that they'd started twitching while he wasn't paying attention.

It was irritating: he'd thought he'd worked all the bugs out decades ago. There hadn't been much else to do in that miserable prison. Well, that and plot escape, revenge.

The contrast with X's hibernation was delicious, wasn't it? They'd both spent far longer than intended optimizing their systems, but while X had used that time to dream of how to create peace and goodwill and other things generally considered gifts from a nonexistent god, he'd spent it working out how to create hell on earth.

His fingers were twitching and X might not have killed himself after all, because those brats of his had done something clever. If he were honest with himself, he'd known that theory was too good to be true. X simply didn't have the common sense to give up and end the pain. And they called _him _mad, when X was the one who had spent more than a century trying to do something utterly impossible.

That madness clearly ran in the family: Dr. Wily wasn't the only ancient who had tried to create a messiah. He'd always thought there was something rather arrogant or simply unfair about Dr. Light's message to X. It had made him pity the android, back before he realized the truth.

The memory files they'd recovered of the initial rampage had revealed that the crystal on Zero's helmet was a weakness: using that to knock Omega unconscious was one thing, but it had been fairly easy for even that incompetent Dr. Cain to revive Zero afterwards. Not only had they not tried to take Omega back with them (a pity they weren't that stupid), they'd teleported out right away after Phantom had landed a glancing blow.

There was no harm in letting Neo Arcadia get their hopes up: it would make breaking them all the sweeter. That was the reason he'd waited so long after his realization to make his move back then, after all. Well, that and all the preparations.

Could it have something to do with the virus creation mechanism? A bug of some sort they'd exploited? He'd removed that system entirely: it was far too dangerous a sword to have hanging over his head. He hadn't survived researching a cure for the virus, much less succeeded in actually devising one, by failing to treat it with the respect due pure raw elemental hatred and annihilation that tried to corrupt everything it touched. The system was surely full of booby traps awaiting anyone who tried to use it to their advantage. The one Dr. Doppler had run afoul of, for example.

Well, at least he'd managed to locate one dark elf, even if it was the only one he didn't have any control over. He'd _tried _to steal it, but X had been watching it like a hawk even when Dr. Weil was one of the heroes that had saved the world and ended the misery of X's children, the reploid race, and X had been so honestly and overwhelmingly grateful to him.

There was just something about the way X looked when he cried, even if they had been tears of happiness. He'd never been interested in anyone but human women and the occasional female model reploid before, much to Arciel's disappointment, but X and Zero were androgynous enough by design it didn't really count, made that way by Dr. Light for high-minded reasons and Dr. Wily because humanity could go fuck itself: it would be extinct soon anyway, so there wouldn't be any need for his creation to pass for human.

Dr. Wily had thought too small. He'd had the power to rewrite reality and what had he done with it? Exactly.

All he needed was one dark elf, to fix whatever was wrong with Omega and get him control over one specific reploid that should have known better than to make itself such a valuable prize. Fools, all of them. They deserved everything they had coming to them, and oh he'd make sure it would.


	17. Of Two Dragons

_The artist notes for Leviathan said that they tried to make her more female and sexy and such than the others. My reaction to this, seeing the sketches and sprites and such is… Um, I think their idea of feminine was loli. Of course, she is one of X's split personalities, and if they were thinking of her as X's feminine side as opposed to an actual female character, that might explain it. In my opinion, of the guardians, Harpuia looks the most feminine and Fefnir… Well. _

_I'm trying to avoid the tendency to randomly pair people up, but since Leviathan's 'type' is prettymuch agreed on... Of course, almost all the alleged pairings in this can be thought of as crushes (like the canonical lots of people/Zero) and/or various degrees of people caring for each other/partnerships. _

_My apologies, Harpuiamuse is being uncooperative. It's like that chapter of _Tree of Thoth_ I couldn't write for the longest time because all I could get out of Flaymuse was, "Bwahahaha!" While in this case there's more of a variety of reactions and emotions, they end up adding up to a massive Oh Crap moment that kind of overshadows everything else. So, this._

* * *

"Leviathan? Look, I'm sure that whatever you're gloating about, you deserve it," Fefnir acknowledged. The fact that Leviathan had been humming Battle Without Honor Or Humanity under her breath when he called was kind of a clue, even if she wasn't telling him anything. She obviously wanted him to ask, and unlike Harpuia, who would give in and ask in order to get the whole thing over with, he refused to play that sort of game. Not in wartime. "But one of you has to get back here. And _conscious_."

"I went back," she pointed out, ducking in and out of the viewscreen's pickup as she packed.

"Yes, long enough to drop Phantom off in the good capsule," the one for _serious_ repairs, the one they'd used back then since it would hurt morale if word got out that any of them were badly injured. The copy of the one X had been found in.

Using it these days honestly gave Fefnir the creeps. Now that their AI grandpa was gone, it felt like sleeping in a _grave_. He hadn't shown it, but the fact that Gramps was technically dead to begin with, like that Jacob Marley guy in one of X's stories, had creeped Fefnir out, especially after he had his first experience with a baby elf. He hadn't minded Aurora, even if she'd had an ego on her the size of Axl's back then (and Fefnir's had been that big, before he'd learned that stronger than almost any other reploid didn't always mean strong _enough)_, since she'd been the one to save the world even when X and Zero couldn't, but how did you fight something that you couldn't hit? That could just crawl inside your body and turn you into a puppet, like the virus?

Gramps had never done that, but Fefnir was pretty sure he could have if he'd wanted to.

"Seriously, Levi," he said. She didn't like that nickname. It was undignified to have a nickname that wasn't more of a title, and 'levi' sounded like another word for _tax, _and while it was cool to be associated with something inevitable, she'd rather be considered a bringer of death than taxes. That was why Fefnir only used it when the conversation really did need to be short and _focused_. "Fuck Harpuia. I know he wanted you out of town while he was trying to get that system to work, but it's clearly working, so now he's out of it and Phantom's out cold. X is…" he waved a hand, because hell if he knew. He just hoped the kid was alright.

Honestly, he wasn't worried about X, and he should be. He'd seen X lose, when he'd tried to fight Omega solo. The _best _he'd been able to do was hold him off, because while X might be able to nullify elf abilities, there was no such thing as a free lunch, and fighting Omega when he had the dark elf was two against one, anyway.

Elf abilities basically worked by sacrificing their lives and energy to change reality. Fefnir was aware there was a lot more to it than that, but what it boiled down to was that they basically had to imagine what they were going to do and kind of interface with the universe to impose their will on it. The thing was, the universe was a lot bigger than they were, and opening your mind in order to upload to it was prettymuch like popping a soap bubble. No more individual.

Fefnir's personal theory was that when a baby elf did it, the universe would spit them right back out because they were way too evil for Nirvana, or Elysium, or Neo Arcadia, if Fefnir had anything to say about it.

The way he'd heard it, they'd made Aurora, and then the baby elves, from studying the virus and how it did what it did, getting into people's minds and changing space like that. And obviously the virus had been _really _evil, even if Aurora wasn't like that at all.

X had been immune to the virus because he knew who he was _really _well, so when the virus tried to change him, he resisted being overwritten. But, when he'd gotten hit with enough of it, the stuff had still disoriented him: he'd needed a second to focus, remember who and where he was, what he was doing, and since the baby elves were concentrated virus (X had said something about Nightmares that Fefnir had tuned out because it had just been history, before Weil had suddenly done a 180), trying to keep them from emptying his e-tanks or possessing him or whatever had left X disoriented, which was not good when a giant fucking death machine that had all of X's moves in its memory banks (what with being made from the body of X's instructor and partner) was trying to stomp him.

It was that strength of will that had let X anchor Aurora while she cured the Maverick Virus, back before Fefnir was turned on, and just because Fefnir hadn't decided to dedicate his life to protecting X and trying to keep all of this from killing him like Phantom didn't mean he hadn't noticed that it was killing him.

If X had gone into hibernation somewhere to try to put his head back together, and Weil found him, and Weil found some baby elves, then well. They were fucked. Baby elves took a moment for X to null: regular elves were nothing by comparison. And it had taken elves to survive against Omega, back then. Fefnir didn't know how many had sacrificed themselves to heal X, or make him untouchable by blast or claw while his head cleared after another assault, so that Omega didn't murder him while he was vulnerable, but he was sure X did. Zero had needed X's help to fight Omega while he held the Dark Elf: if Weil managed to get X and his capabilities the way he'd gotten Zero's original body and made it into Omega?

And it was X's will that had let him do all that stuff. Fight the virus, fight Aurora after she was kidnapped, and Weil, and Omega. Handle the madhouse that had eventually shaped up into Neo Arcadia.

So if he'd started to lose that willpower? To doubt himself?

Yeah. Fefnir had plenty of reasons to worry about his Father.

But, frankly, he could only worry so much per day, and right now all of it was taken up by Neo Arcadia, the kid and Aurora, so there wasn't enough left over to worry about his father or his siblings. So he was just letting himself hold on to that comforting illusion that they'd done this before and could do it again, could look after themselves, as long as it held out. "Look, the point is, if we say Phantom is on a mission somewhere and X is doing something that will save their asses, they'll believe it." Might even be true. "And it's obvious where Harpuia is. But someone has to be in overall command, and I have a land war to run. So get the hell back here and…"

"Why? It sounds like you're running things just fine."

Fefnir just stared, which was less effective when she wasn't looking at him, but at a selection of personnel files. "Tell Harpuia I'm stealing the guard detachment here, alright? Whenever he comes to."

"Levi…" Where did he start? What did he know about reassuring people, other than by killing whatever was worrying them? Which was keeping him a little busy! "Look, Harpuia's the strategist, you're the tactician, Phantom does stuff with… people," often killing them before they'd realized he was there, "and I just, you know, fight. Command?"

"Yeah, I remember you saying that. And I also remember X saying that you reminded him of Zero," who had only become a commander because Sigma had stolen, and kept stealing, prettymuch everyone else, when Zero had wanted to stay on the ground and just kill things, "And then he gave you an army. And you did fine." More than fine, if Leviathan had wanted to go into details. Listing Fefnir's military accomplishments would have wasted valuable time. "Harpuia and Phantom are busy. I was given an order to stay out of Neo Arcadia for now, and with Omega incapacitated, this is the perfect time for me to go pick up the kid and check out the hot blonde babysitters…" She paused, looking at one of the files. Her expression of delighted surprise morphed into shock."I thought Harpuia was being metaphorical." He'd actually reassigned 'Elpizo,' or rather Elpis according to their current registration, to Antarctica literally? "Oh, right, I forgot his sense of humor was surgically removed." She rolled her eyes and set them aside for now.

Wait, back up a minute. "Omega's incapacitated?"

"What, you thought Phantom would sacrifice himself for anything less?" Not that he was dead. At least, she hoped not. "Not permanently. To make sure of that, we need…"

"…the original owner." They'd hoped that the kid could get in and out with Zero before Weil detected that location had a special teleport unit and went after it, but no such luck. Still, if Weil had a clue that he needed to target them, forget if he already had, he'd be gloating. He liked telling people how they and their loved ones were going to suffer. Right now, they were just a few more lost mechanaloids in the wastes.

Damn, she was right. He must have known that, really. She was the tactician for a reason. "Leviathan?"

"Yes, Fefnir?"

"I just want you to know that I hate you so, so much, and I will get you back for this." Because seriously, overall command meant dealing with the city. And the shiny new command and contact center, the one that was making things so much easier, but felt, when he looked at all those people and screens and information, as though he was watching all of them standing on the rim of a volcano, pouring in energy crystals. It was nice to have the nice things, but artillery needed bombs and launchers and gun repairs and food… He'd had to pinch every resource he could get his hands on until they stopped screaming to fight Weil's forces, and then the lean years had started. Yeah, they had the generators now, and his people would lay down their lives to keep Weil from destroying them the way he had the old world's infrastructure, but seeing it made him feel like this wasn't going to last. That it was too good to last, that they'd burn everything up in a desperate push or rescue mission or defense, and then what?

Everything would be back to the way it was back then.

He'd been born in an era of sudden, grateful peace and prosperity and watched it be torn away to be replaced by a nightmare. He did _not _want to think that it was all happening again. That was what Weil wanted them to think. It would happen over his dead body, but he couldn't think that way, either. It was a bad idea to go into a fight resigned to death, even though desperation to protect his people was a good thing.

"I hate you too, Fefnir," Leviathan said, consolingly. It was an old ritual, started when X told them why he always told them he loved them before any of them headed out. Because he'd seen too many hunters find out that their loved ones were dead, and then they were left to regret that they hadn't told them that they loved them, or that the last words they spoke to them were some fight or…

X had wanted them to know that he loved them, because he'd been certain that they were going to die. Everyone else did, after all. Except Zero. Dead or maverick, and Weil was targeting the four of them because he knew it would hurt X, and X knew Weil was, and Weil knew X knew… And X had brought them into this world, thinking that they would have peace, and now they were caught up in a war and in so much danger because of him.

He'd wanted to give them everything, and all he could give them was love. And armor. Weapons, supplies. Almost like Gramps.

So they'd tell X that sure, they loved him too, but they'd tell each other, he and Leviathan, that they were still angry over, oh, whatever it had been last time. Before they'd known what war was, they'd had something they'd called a prank war, him and Aurora against Levi and Harp. It was so minor, petty, ridiculous in hindsight, but that made it good for a laugh.

So he would definitely be fine, and with him Neo Arcadia, because he needed to punch her face in.

"I have ever since I realized that you had a better rack than I did," Leviathan added.

Ok, now he really needed to kick her ass. "They're stylized pectoral muscles!" he growled for the umpteenth time.

As though any reploids but them and a few medics had any idea what those were. "It's alright, Fefnir. Having fake breasts doesn't make you any less badass. Look at, ok, don't look at me, I'm an A cup," X hadn't wanted his daughters to be seen as sex objects until they decided that they were ready to deal with this and had themselves remodeled to add a little extra the way Alia and Iris had, "But look at Zero." She fluttered her eyelashes at him, then grinned. "I know I will."


	18. In Our Thoughts

_I just got Gigamix 2, which, while it blew all, or at least half, the moral complication backstory I invented out of the water (at least for Hitoshi Arigaverse), is so damn awesome I really can't bring myself to care. _

_In addition to that, Haruna Rei translated something from Mega Man 10, we went, "What? Still?" and got a new plotbunny._

_Dammit, Harpuia, stop being so difficult. I can't post any chapters after this one until I get that one done, not without messing up the sequence of events even more! I swear, I've wanted to keep him as a major character, but he's not really a major character if I can never _write _him, is he?_

_This is the last chapter of 'scenes with minor characters.' I have to do this one in order to set stuff up for later and continue some references made earlier: my apologies to people who don't find this interesting. I admit, how societies and their superstitions and such form and affect people is major author appeal for me. I like getting down to the nuts and bolts of it all._

_The Mega Man Wikia was helpful for what the Resistance members' names actually mean. Apparently Rocinolle is a mistranscription of the French for nightingale. Hirondelle means swallow._

* * *

Craft noted the name on the little bar of her insignia automatically as she scanned his ID card: Rocinolle. Dr. Rocinolle, given that the text was purple and the background color was white instead of the light blue, green, purple or red of the Guardian Armies. Medics, as opposed to full doctors, had the background color of the army they were assigned to, like common soldiers, but their names were written in white instead of the normal black. They were showing the informational pieces about stuff like that again, the ones relevant to the current situation.

Craft was trying to pay attention to everything, since Neige would want to do a piece on this later.

"Visual… Very nice. You're a very well put together reploid," she complimented him.

He shifted uncomfortably, since it was really thanks to Neige, even though he'd tried to make the investments pay off.

She looked up at him. "So… would you mind telling me why on earth you were sent here? This is the surgical center. I presume Lt. Anubis wouldn't have sent you here if all you needed was a looking over and perhaps a tune-up. Not when we have our hands full with major upgrades."

"He said something about a favor to Capt. Colbor."

"Aaaah," she said, nodding. It seemed to make sense to her, which was good because he hadn't expected the special treatment. Anubis saying that if Craft hadn't shown up on his own they would have hauled him in hadn't been very reassuring. "So you're _that_ one. Room 302: Dr. Cerveau is waiting for you, so go right in."

Waiting for me? Craft wondered as he went where he was pointed. Dr. Cerveau, he knew that name…

"Private Craft?" she called after him. "Your ID card." She held it out to him when he turned around.

"I can't believe I forgot that, I'd sooner forget my own head." It was drilled into you from the moment you were turned on: never _ever _lose your ID card, unless you wanted someone running up a several-megajoule tab on your energy usage account.

She waved down his worries. "No, no, you're not even the first person today. Everyone's being jolted out of their routine, it's hard on those little habits." Like putting ID cards back in before going anywhere. "It's not like the old days, when everyone was constantly calling up their usage totals." There was more leeway now, people could afford to do a few things without really worrying, although if they made a habit of too much of that they'd soon wind up in heavy debt.

"You said it," he agreed. "It's been pretty amazing, watching this place change."

"Ah!" She snapped her fingers. "_That's_ where I know you from. I didn't recognize you without the hat and the camera." She leaned forward. "Did Ms. Neige also volunteer? Although it would be a real pity, someone with her talents for information analysis in the Meikai."

"Ah, you're Zan'ei."

"Of course, dear." She smiled at him. "We're doing the most exciting things with sensory systems and internal safety features." Ah, so she'd joined up before the war as part of the research wing: practically everything in Neo Arcadia came under one of the Four Guardians, just as an organizational matter, and they were supposed to look after areas related to their specialties. Emergency response teams were Harpuia's, since flight capability meant they could get on the scene faster, and trauma surgery came under Fefnir, just off the top of Craft's head. One of the others had done the informational 'show' on the medical system and all the research being done to contribute towards Neo Arcadia's future and the welfare of its people etc. etc. "Speaking of which, why on earth are you in the Jin'en?" She'd seen the stamp on his card.

"I volunteered for the Zan'ei: Capt. Colbor told me to get over to the Jin'en, since I was volunteering over there for the wrong reasons." He gave a heavy sigh. "He was right, so here I am." It wasn't just about Neige, and she had her job to do. They couldn't worry so much about each other that they lost sight of the big picture, not when getting that out was their job.

Her eyes widened. "Hmm? Let me have your card again?"

"Sure, Dr. Rocinolle," he said, pulling it out again. "Or should I say yes, sir?" he asked, saluting by pressing a closed fist to his heart.

She laughed. "Oh, technically yes, but I'll let it slide." Doctors ranked _everybody _when it came to doctorly things, even though she wasn't even attached to his army. "You'd better keep that in mind once you're in the Jin'en, though. All the generals are real sticklers for discipline with the new recruits." Even the Zan'ei, famously informal, made you _earn _it. "After all, when told to jump, it's best to ask how high on the way up until you know how to identify dangers."

He nodded: of course. "I've been in the wastes with Neige."

"Ah, yes." That series, when they'd gone on a circuit of all the sectors. "That was so fascinating! Almost made me wish I did fieldwork." To think of going to such interesting places. "Ah, hmm. I thought so. Well, it looks like you're our first war correspondant."

"War correspondant?" What was that?

"I have no idea, except that it has something to do with reporters. I think Master X mentioned those words in that speech when ANN was set up." Recognizing Craft had jogged her memory. "Well, I suppose that's why you're supposed to get upgrades. Oh, look at the time." She handed him back his ID card. "I'll be off to the training grounds before you're done, so have a good day."

"You too, Dr. Rocinolle."

When he knocked, he heard Dr. Cerveau call, "Come in!"

He was at a worktable, tinkering with something involving three metal rods that were chained together. The rods didn't seem to be solid, but rather complicated constructions allowing him to swap parts in and out. "Can I ask what you're working on?" Craft asked, leaning against the door. "Or is it classified?"

"No, it's not, I wouldn't leave anything classified…" Dr. Cerveau started to protest, then paused and quickly closed several windows on his viewscreen. "Anyway, no, it's not classified, it's a prototype weapon with interchangeable parts that change the mode. Modes." He paused. "Craft! You're that guy with ANN!"

"Not right now. Unless I still am." War correspondant? The only thing he could think of was 'correspond,' and 'someone that corresponds with war?' As in as a possibly-metaphorical similarity to? That couldn't be right. If he was still over at ANN, he could have asked Hirondelle, who made a study of all those old words and languages. In any case, "I'm surprised you still recognize me: it's been a few years." He held out his hand to shake Dr. Cerveau's.

Dr. Cerveau took it eagerly. "Well, it's not like we get many visitors all the way out there. And Ciel always made a point of catching your shows, when she wasn't deep into a project."

"You're in the Rekku?" Craft was finally close enough to see that the letters on Cerveau's tag were green, not blue, although the Meikai would have made even less sense. Unless General Leviathan had wanted to ensure Ciel's safety because she was a female human: it was always easier for Neige to get interviews with her than the other Guardians because she was openly biased in favor of female models of both species.

Dr. Cerveau half-shrugged. "Well, technically. Why?"

"I thought you were there for Dr. Ciel's protection as well as research." Sending Neo Arcadia's living treasure out into the wastes without a bodyguard? Neige and the city should be told about _that_.

"…You haven't heard of the joint Rekku-Zan'ei protection initiative?" Dr. Cerveau looked surprised: it wasn't especially secret. "I joined the Rekku because of my specialty," delicate repair work, related to special weapons like beam sabers and also field repairs. "And I was given extra training when I was lucky enough to be selected as Dr. Ciel's assistant." He looked a little bashful. "Although, really, Ciel built a very good defense system." So he'd never really had an opportunity to use any of that training, although he practiced with Ciel, to keep her company. It was also the law, since they were out there.

"You didn't mention anything like that when we interviewed you." And Craft had assumed that Cerveau's silence was proof that he was Zan'ei. He should have known better than to assume.

Another half-shrug, this one more self-depreciating. "I didn't think you or the people of Neo Arcadia would find me very interesting, not compared to Dr. Ciel and her work." Cerveau pushed up the goggles that were practically uniform for anyone who went out in the wastes who hadn't been specially constructed for it and turned back to the viewscreen to find the instructions he'd been sent related to Craft.

"Speaking of which, where is Dr. Ciel?"

"Classified. They didn't even tell _me_." Cerveau just hoped someone was remembering to make sure she ate. It had taken him a long time to reliably remember to do that since reploids obviously didn't need to, not in the same way. They could take in energy constantly too, so regular mealtimes were a bit hard for him to set.

* * *

"Neige, _you are not going to believe this_."

"Believe what, Hiro?" Neige asked, without getting up from her chair. Hirondelle (no one ever called him the long version: it was reserved for official documents and when he wanted to be elegant) must be really excited, to forget that it was a bad idea to grab people's shoulders from behind without warning them first, especially right now, when everyone was jumpy.

"I got a commission," he said excitedly.

"At a time like this?" If she hadn't known that Hiro was more responsible than _that_, she would have asked what he was thinking, spending time on his hobby/side job of composing poetry and other nicely-worded things for clients when the Third Elf War was going on and they needed their proofreader/scriptwriter.

"It's from General Leviathan herself!" He pulled his arms back from Neige's shoulders, and she spun around in her chair with a practiced kick fast enough to see him pressing his open hand over his heart. Urban legends said that if you didn't treat her with the proper respect and do that when you said her name, she'd steal your heart away. From the old movies they'd seen, it was derived from an older gesture people sometimes did when talking about someone they admired, but Hiro liked expressions and expressive things, so he did it especially dramatically, raising his eyes to the heavens and such as he did it.

Crossing someone's fingers had been for luck, swearing that something was true and protection from the consequences of lying, oddly enough. 'Cross your heart and hope to die,' was a strange phrase that probably wasn't connected with Master X, except coincidentally. Neige hadn't had to look at old movies to see the origin of Fefnir's symbol: fist-over-heart was an alternate salute in the Jin'en army, because of how differently reploids had been built in the old days. Lots of unique models all over the place. Even these days, there were some models where it was really hard to say where the 'forehead' was, so fist over roughly the right area on the body was sometimes the simpler alternative to fist-over-forehead.

Still, a commission from General Leviathan, now? "Is it something newsworthy?"

"Oh _yes_. You are _not _going to believe this. But I can't talk about it right now, it's still classified. But it was _amazing_." He needed to find time to study more footage of fights, learn more about the moves and what he could only refer to as choreography in order to do it justice. The crystalline spray of the ice, the roaring of dragons, the Guardians of the dark ocean and the dark night facing down the God of Destruction itself! He didn't know about stealing his heart, but the beauty of it really had taken his breath away, rendered him speechless when he was shown it.

"Good news about the war?"

"_Very_," he agreed, nodding. "Craft and the other volunteers might be getting sent home sooner than you think." That would hopefully cheer her up: Neige without Craft was, well. It was so _odd _to see one without the other.

"_That_ good?" Still, because he was her friend, she had to tell him, "You had better stop exciting my curiosity, though, unless you _want _me to dig it out of you." And she had to resist that temptation, because if it was good news, then they were probably keeping it secret for a reason. They clearly were intending to tell the people of Neo Arcadia at some point, if Leviathan had gone to all the trouble of commissioning something to commemorate it.

She wanted to know _now_, though, especially when it had something to do with Craft, and whether he'd make it back safely or not.

Sometimes she missed being a little child. No one would believe it these days if she looked big-eyed, brainless and innocent when caught sneaking somewhere she wasn't supposed to be. Not when she was one of ANN's most popular reporters.


	19. Heavens' Power

_Because Harpuia was difficult, the events in most of this chapter take place before the more recently posted chapters – this happens around when Phantom and Leviathan fought Omega. I couldn't wait any longer to get it written, though, because plotstuff in here is vital to later chapters. I wanted action and showing him get to smite stuff, but he's still being damn uncooperative and going, 'It would be entirely inappropriate for me to be gloating and thinking I kick ass in a chapter where _this _happens!' So you have been deprived of action by modesty, I suppose. Or Harpuia kicking himself, anyway._

_An explanation of the hymnos stuff for those who care will be at the end._

* * *

Up here, where the magnetic field and what was left of the ozone layer (Australia might have been the _least bad _place to build Neo Arcadia, but by no stretch of the imagination was it a _good _location) deflected or otherwise shielded Earth from most of the energy the sun gave off (because otherwise, Earth would have been sterilized long before humanity evolved, forget the creation of his kind), there was effectively infinite energy.

If you could gather it.

Back in the day where everyone received some basic knowledge about the world, in school or their startup downloads, it was known that high altitudes were cold.

Up here, there weren't very many particles, but the ones that were here? Were incredibly high energy. A perpetual storm, raging above the earth.

It would have solved all of Neo Arcadia's energy problems if there was such a thing as a safe way to tap it.

Oh, it could be tapped, it just wasn't _safe _to feed something like that into Neo Arcadia's power grid. Not when the city had been hastily rigged together. Barely any of it would have passed a basic safety inspection when Harpuia was built. Surge protection and capacitors were simple technology, basic protections, insurance against anything going wrong. Going without them meant that when anything went wrong, it went _very _wrong. However, when they'd needed to build something _now_, with barely any resources, or get something working again, with the situation no better, then the needs of the future had to be sacrificed to the needs of the present, because otherwise there would have been no future.

In the long run, it was a stupid way to operate. However, as some ancient human had pointed out, in the long run, they were all dead.

Except they'd preserved some things for the future. As insurance, in case something went even wronger than usual. Like Valkyrie. Like the cables he'd first used to interface with Valkyrie. Like the weather control sattilite network, although they hadn't been able to spare the resources to actually get anything up there to repair any of it until Ciel's generators had started to come online.

Perhaps the real reason they hadn't sent anything up to gather them up and take them apart for the parts was that he knew, and Leviathan knew, that they weren't just drones.

Except they were. They weren't even sentient, and he'd sacrificed plenty to fight Weil, and would do it all over again, harder, if it came to that. He still… hadn't wanted to lose them. Lose this. Although he'd been forced to, by the need to preserve energy. Been forced to remain ground-bound. Been forced to let the rest of the world go even further to hell without the weather control network acting to keep the damage from spreading.

Been forced to come very close to _forgetting what he was_.

He'd been locked in a cage for more than fifty years, and now he was finally getting to spread wings that had been cramped by the confines. Pins and needles was the least of it. He was practically drowning in error messages, and he had to wrack his processor to remember how to resolve any of them. If he couldn't figure out the ones that were keeping it from recognizing his code, he wasn't going to get very far: there was only so much that could be done with basic user access. Was he going to have to go back to Neo Arcadia and try to dig up his old programming textbo…

_Harpuia_Ansul_SolCiellenne chs Soleire_

"_There we go_," he thought, smirking.

_Connecting to Leviathan_Ansul_ViuyZaarn for verification._

_Connected to Leviathan_Ansul_ViuyZaarn – verification given._

Leviathan wasn't taking over her ancient network, no: affecting ocean currents was of limited utility right now unless Weil was stupid enough to try to build a fleet.

Harpuia wished.

Although, what he really wished was that Weil had invested in an air force or let his now-activated hidden bases be visible from above now that he was moving mechanaloids and resources into and out of them… _There_.

Controllable power, the upper atmosphere was short on. Massive amounts of uncontrollable power? The kind that would fry you if you tried to hold it too long? The kind that was perfect for converting mechanaloids into slag and bases into large, glassy craters?

He'd have to supervise every attack personally, though, to make sure the friend-foe recognition system didn't get buggy and target civilians or, heaven forbid, Neo Arcadia itself.

Oh, and that the system didn't fry itself, Valkyrie and his processor. That was also an issue of some importance. Right now, his mind was far more in the system than his body, so it would be bad if the system was fried. It would also be bad if Valkyrie was fried and his support unit, empty and helpless body strapped to it, were sent plummeting down towards Neo Arcadia, so far below him now.

A bird's eye view. How a god would see the world, if there were such a thing.

_Connecting to Implanta. Forwarding visual data._

Implanta? What?

Just to make sure Weil hadn't hacked anything (it was theoretically impossible, but baby elves were good at that sort of thing), Harpuia queried the other server and then was left to wonder why on earth X had bothered to change the Yggdrasil System's designation from _ArTonelico _to_ Implanta_.

Well, the Yggdrasil System was still forwarding data to the rest of Neo Arcadia's network, meaning the personnel in their nice new command and control center would be able to get satellite footage of the rest of the planet, all of it, in real time, instead of hoping that one of the few remaining spy satellites would chance to be overhead at a useful time and hadn't been hacked by Weil.

While he was at it:

_Connect to X_Ansul_ArTonelico. _

_Address redirects to:_

_Rhaplanca_Ansul_Implanta._

_Connection blocked. _

Well, Harpuia had known it wouldn't be that easy. If X had wanted to be alerted in emergencies, he would have set that alarm to be triggered by other things, and if he'd wanted his children to be able to get ahold of him, they would have done so long before now.

He hesitated, but:

_Connect to Elpis_Fehu_Maoh_InfelPhira._

_Address redirects to:_

_Elpis_Teiwaz_InfelPhira._

_Connection blocked. _

He'd also known that the odds were slim to none that he'd be able to locate the Dark Elf that way, but just in case… Normally, yes, things were never that easy, but it would have been extremely annoying if he'd never tried it and found out after the fact that yes, it could have been that easy.

It was still disturbing that after all this time, Weil was still running the dark elf off the _virus' _server. The one it had accessed to warp space, revive the dead and manifest the Nightmares that had given Arciel and Weil the idea for cyber elves. Speaking of which…

_Connect to Maoh_Ansul_InfelPhira. _

_Address redirects to:_

_Zero_Ansul_InfelPhira. _

Damn, so it still recognized him, still considered him its master. That meant there had to be at least some of its power left in him: the question was how much. If the virus would be able to revive. Yes, they had cyber elves now, the virus could be cured, but who knew how many humans would die when mavericks suddenly revealed themselves if the plague began again?

_Zero_Ansul_InfelPhira na chs Listea. _

…He hadn't actually expected that to work, either.

…_Connection destabilized. Retry? _

No, he'd gotten enough data. Zero's signal strength was under five percent of its original value, _well _under. More like one percent. That was enough. For now.

Part of him wanted to know what was up with this Implanta nonsense, what had X done now and what was it going to do to Harpuia's system and Neo Arcadia's? However, he had more important fish to fry. If only Phantom had been doing something _useful _instead of standing around and watching Harpuia do battle with the ferocious Tangled Cable Army. Harpuia had no idea what the Japanese for that was: the only reason X had recommended putting the army names in Japanese was that it sounded fairly mystic and imposing to modern people (after all, it was the lost language of the country Dr. Light had worked in), and it was easier to believe in symbols than numbers.

Even if X had always hated being a symbol, he had known what it meant, during the Maverick Wars, for the legendary Mega Man's younger brother and successor to be fighting for the world.

Leviathan always insisted that being a blue Lightbot made her at _least _twenty percent cooler than the rest of them.

No. It wasn't the word Implanta that bothered him.

X had said that Grandfather had given him that name because it meant a variable that could mean anything, until the equation was solved. It meant infinite potential. So what did it mean that X had changed his name, or at least his system designation, to something else? Something finite? Oh, it wasn't fixed, it didn't mean he was incapable of change or growth, right? Maybe it was just a second designation he'd created for whatever project of his 'Implanta' was, so it didn't get confused with his normal name/address via Ar Tonelico? It could just be a redirect, like Weil's blasted 'teiwaz' code. Unless it was just another trick of Wily's he'd stolen and let people think was his own work.

At least Omega had never been able to get Ansul authorization out of Wily's systems: they were somehow able to tell that it might be the same body, but the mind inhabiting it was another of Weil's twisted victims, although Omega barely had a mind at all.

…He should check that.

Bad news was far more likely than good news, after all.

_Query Omega_Fehu_Maoh_InfelPhira._

_Address blocked by:_

_Phantom_Fehu_Axl_Implanta._

What the… what now?

Alright. Now he was dealing with… something cooked up by X _and _something withPhantom. Trying to figure out what the hell was going on would clearly be a waste of time when he could at least beat it out of Phantom later, or wait for Fefnir and Leviathan to do it for him.

Still, before he started blasting Weil's bases with lightning (he hadn't been able to do that during the Elf Wars, because if Weil had taken control of him? Harpuia would have to disconnect the instant Weil found any baby elves, but until then he was planning on smiting his forces hard enough there wouldn't even be an outline left on the glassy crater that used to be sand) he'd better go through and see if there were any shields up, trying to hide Weil's bases from prying eyes.

Well, there was one glaring inconsistency in the atmospheric data: from the weather patterns, the air over Area Zero was far more humid than it should be. Far more. Over a wide area.

Area Zero hadn't been visited, by _anyone_ since the end of the Second Elf War, if Harpuia recalled correctly. So, if Weil had left some mechanaloids there, with orders to build a base, and keep building… Then it was a very bad thing that the atmospheric conditions prevailed over such a wide area.

Alright. So, what was feeding the false information to his spy-eyes? It looked like six ground installations and… a few old Maverick Hunter satellites. Weil must have gotten their access codes somehow.

Harpuia grimaced, at least mentally (his body was currently in the stratosphere, hooked up to Valkyrie, and he'd paralyzed it so that he wouldn't accidently knock anything loose if his body translated him mentally reaching for a satellite into reaching with an arm), and knew he had to bite the bullet. Take them all out at once, see how bad it was.

What… The…

Transpiration.

That water wasn't a byproduct of some industrial process. Unless you counted photosynthesis.

Transpiration. Because those were trees. Trees that didn't incorporate any metal: real, _healthy_, trees. In Area Zero. A self-sustaining ecosystem. Fertile ground that clearly didn't require massive amounts of energy and manpower to produce biomass and food.

Weil wouldn't have hidden something like that. He'd have _nuked it from orbit_.

There was someone else who would have used Maverick Hunter satellites. Someone who had probably been given the access codes on the day they were launched, because he was immune and therefore one of only two people data like that was safe with in the entire organization.

But… Why? Why would X have hidden something like this? When people were starving and desperate? His people? When this would have meant _so much_ to Neo Arcadia, given them real, tangible hope that this world could recover, that…

Hope that Weil would not, _could not, _permit. If he'd known this was there, he would have destroyed it.

And, Harpuia realized, he had just destroyed the defenses that were hiding it from him.

Harpuia wished he could believe that cursing would make this any better.

There were no words for a screw-up like this.

This was now a war on two fronts.

* * *

_The names with underscores and stuff after them are ID codes that are used to identify individuals and their ranks/authorizations. Reploids are derived from X, who was programmed in Standard Notation, which is the base code for robot masters as well. Anything from Light Robotics post-Blues is going to use this programming language. Wily tweaked it to produce this 'verse's version of New Testament (the IPD virus/Infel Phira's programming language), although since the New Testament server can run programs in Standard Notation (via emulation), it's kind of moot unless you're talking why baby elves can do more than elves who can do more than reploids in the way of reality warping. Also, the claim that IPDs don't have an equivalent of this ID code makes me go WTH, since especially in the sysadmin's case it would be even more important than it would be for standard beta types... In any case, I modeled Zero and Elpis' ID codes on the normal format, for compatibility's sake._

_Ansul is roughly 'sysadmin/genius loci of a (reality warping, because controlling ocean and air currents without breaking the laws of physics is unrealistic, if less unrealistic than teleportation) computer network.' The last parts of their hymn codes are the name of the system/hymn server that they're the admin of. Harpuia's means 'shining heavens,' Leviathan's is roughly 'dark ocean.' _

_Fehu means 'clone of.' Or 'derived from,' at least. All ordinary reploids would be Fehu_X, unless they're mavericks. Basically, registered user. Teiwaz is a redirect Mir (final boss of the first AT game) used to try to get control of the Ar Tonelico server away from the Ansul. It gave her nice powers and authority. _

_Here, I'm using chs to indicate they are transitioning from 'individual reploid mode' to 'genius loci mode.' Or attempting to. (Na chs means it was unsuccessful, in this context.) The names of the two genius loci modes given above are the AT sky god and war god. There's an ocean goddess I'd use for Leviathan's mode, but I don't think it'll come up in the fic._

_All the Ar Tonelico stuff in here is really just fluff, though. I like the nuts and bolts, and hey, reality warping programming languages! If I ever do write a proper crossover, though?_


	20. We're All Mad Here

'_Why doesn't X do more?' is a question a lot of people ask about Zero series. _

_First, the question of why he doesn't fight: X noticed that he'd gone He Who Fights Monsters. I decided to apply the principle of 'show, not tell,' to this: Twice in this fic X has been caught in situations where his automatic reaction is now to kill people instead of caring enough about them to find out what's really going on before attacking, and twice now he's almost killed innocent people – Copy-X and Phantom. _

_The other question is why didn't he appear and tell the Guardians to cut the bullshit, kill Copy-X and take over Neo Arcadia to stop killing reploids, solve the energy crisis and so on? _

_This question has already been answered: Inafune's original premise for Zero series, the one vetoed by Capcom, _that's _why he didn't, because that's what would have happened if he had. Zero would have ended up fighting X instead of Copy-X, and this would have been very bad. It is not good when veteran good guys choose to cross to the other side of the moral event horizon in pursuit of some goal._

_Ghaleon, you _Magnificent _Bastard. I played your games. _

_Although, ok, I have to admit that as much as I admire X knowing that yes, he had to try to go cold turkey on the Chronic Hero Syndrome thing even if it killed him (because it was the only way to stop it from killing other people), if him not being one of the token sensible people (the other being Zero) in such an idiot-ball-ridden series had meant that Zero series was more like Lunar, I could totally have lived with that. Although I don't know if X has it in him to be as epic a troll as Ghaleon turned out to be. Of course, Ghaleon was originally the idealistic white mage of the Four Heroes. Then he started using spells of doom and bitchslapping, screwing around with gods and, in the original, working the children of Alex's hometown to death. I did mention that former heroes with good intentions could decide to be scary _evil bastards_, yes?_

* * *

X led him back to where Phantom had found him and the Mother Elf.

She looked like…

One of Marino's treasures, the ancient trinkets she'd accumulated back when she had expected to die (or be infected) young and was trying to be remembered as a Legendary Thief was called a cd player, according to X. It played music from discs. One side was blank, and the other generally had a printed label.

The data was actually on the side with the label, so if that was damaged there was no fixing it, but if the blank side was scratched, which they generally were, then the scratch could be filled in. Marino had played one for him without fixing it first once, so he could see what happened.

It had kept trying to play the same few seconds over and over, going back when it couldn't read any further, like a loop in time.

That was how the Mother Elf looked, inside the cloak of dark power Weil had wrapped around her, locked her in. As though she would try to pull herself together, then freeze again, remembering what had panicked her in the first place. Struggle, paralysis. Struggle, paralysis.

It was sad. It was terrible to behold.

It was also amazing progress, that she was even in this loop. That she wasn't just frozen or shaking in terror.

At least she could try to fight, now.

"Aurora," X said, wincing and went to her. "Aurora, it's ok. Everything's ok. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm not going to hurt you." His hands stopped at the edge of that aura, and Phantom could see how he wanted to hold her, but knew that would just frighten her and make it worse. "Aurora, you're safe. Omega, Weil: they're not here. I wouldn't hurt you, Aurora. It's ok."

Phantom hung back, somehow certain that this was his fault. She hadn't been like this when he'd intruded. "I'm sorry," he apologized to them both.

"No, it's my fault. I shouldn't have grabbed her so suddenly, even to make sure I didn't hit her by mistake." Aurora, even before Weil had infused her with _that _power and turned her from the Mother Elf to the Dark Elf, was based on Zero. Based on the Nightmares that had arisen after Eurasia, while Zero dreamed. Based on the virus. "I thought you were Sigma. Again." The virus had been destroyed, and infecting Neo Arcadia with it would be pointless as long as there were elves there (although Weil might, just for the sake of the terror and the deaths of a few elves), but just like Lumine had mimicked Sigma to hurt X, Weil had conjured up that specter as well. Anything to hurt X. All of them, but especially X. "I didn't want the system purge to damage her."

"I'm sorry, Master X. I shouldn't have…"

"Sneaked up on me? No. Weil's returned. I need to start thinking about things like this again. I can't be complacent."

Aurora's eyes finally seemed to _see _X, so he slowly and carefully moved forward, daring to embrace her. Careful, careful.

"You knew that Weil had returned?"

X rocked Aurora as he answered Phantom. "I was alerted when Zero woke up. Phantom, whose idea was it to build a copy of me?" Before, X would have assumed it was Phantom's, since he was the sneaky one, but Phantom would have tried to take X's place _while _jugging his own duties. He was prone to overworking himself like that, ever since the Second Elf War had begun.

"Ciel's."

"…Little Ciel?" She'd only been what, nine when he left?

"Given her ancestry…" Phantom shrugged. And the latest genetic modifications for intelligence, of course.

X looked like he was calculating something, then grimaced. "She's a very close match, except for hair color and the obvious. Almost a clone. I should have noticed that before. Well, I suppose cracking our security runs in that family…" Seeing Phantom's puzzlement, he told him that, "I can access Neo Arcadia's databases from here."

"Of course, Master X." Really, since he'd made a mockery of Neo Arcadia's physical security, why shouldn't he have an undetectable data link? It still made Phantom feel like he should be sent to the training room to hit a thousand bulls' eyes or something as a penalty for sucking on a mission. "Speaking of which, Weil said something about a network left over from before the Cataclysm?"

"Yes, there was. It was gradually repairing itself, hooked up to the Yggdrasil System, even though the governing AI was destroyed. I had to self destruct the rest of it: Weil used Omega to interface with it and return."

"Self-destruct? All of it? Does that include the teleport unit you gave me?"

X looked somewhat proud of him. "Not the unit itself, but you're right: it can only use the standard network now."

"I don't have to ask why you didn't give Harpuia or Leviathan anything connected to it."

"No. They would have been security risks." One Baby Elf, and Weil might have known the system was there. And been able to connect to it through them.

"Speaking of Harpuia…" Phantom hesitated, and then kicked himself. He was supposed to _think before he spoke_, irradiate it. Harpuia had made their decision, Phantom was _not _going to tell X on them and ask him to make it all better.

X's eyes narrowed. "Phan-" Then he realized that it was _not _a good idea to use a threatening tone of voice right now when Aurora shuddered in his arms. "What are you doing here, by the way?"

"I'm attempting to break Omega free of Weil's control programming. I infiltrated his body the way Lumine infiltrated Axl's. I was attempting to return to my own body and report when I noticed an area with no ambient energy signature." Something stealth, in Neo Arcadia, that he hadn't known about? He'd had to investigate.

Freeing Omega? Thaaaat made X pause. And look at him.

The old X, the peacetime one that had built him, would have yelled at him for doing something so suicidal. This one examined him, wheels turning behind green eyes, and finally asked, "What then?"

"I'm sure you know more about the worst case scenarios resulting from Dr. Wily's original programming being in control of Omega's body again. However, it might simply place the body in a catatonic state," ready for Zero to move back in, and then Phantom might get someone else back. Although that was being too optimistic.

"Or it could be an uncontrollable beast, attacking everything – which will harm Weil more than us." And a mindless enemy could be outwitted easier than one backed by Weil's mad logic. "The absolute worst case scenario…" X hesitated, then nodded, eyes hard. "Is still better than what Weil has planned for this world. Alright: I'm assigning that mission to you: delete Weil's programming and release Omega."

Phantom bowed. "Yes, Master X. What should I tell the others?"

"Tell them?" X raised his eyebrows.

"When I report. I assume you don't want your location to become general knowledge?"

He'd just managed to disappoint X. Again. "Phantom, do you really think you could hide this from your brother and sisters?"

He wanted to say that of course he could. He was _Phantom, _damn it.

But this was X, and they were Harpuia, Leviathan and Fefnir. He wouldn't be able to hide that something monumental had happened, something that had caused him to doubt his skills and simultaneously made him feel relieved. He would be interrogated, and just like Leviathan had interrupted a battle with the god-damn God of Destruction for Harpuia's sake, they _would _get the information out of him. Absolutely. This was family, and he should have had his arrogance beaten out of him by all this. He couldn't afford to be overconfident, not when this was _Weil_.

His job had been too easy for too many years, he realized, just like Leviathan had realized what had happened to her own skills when she battled Omega.

"You're not going to tell them anything," X informed him, "because you're not going to be reporting to them." X was not going to let him.

Phantom wanted to protest. He'd grown used to protesting, because it was okay to do that when it was Harpuia in command. Not when it was Master X. The real Master X, anyway. He wanted to say that they might think he was dead, if he didn't wake up and take control of his body.

"It will be dangerous for you to battle Omega for too long at a time. Actually, _don't _battle Omega. See if you can force him to run up against Weil's programs: that will make him evolve to defeat them instead of you. You can return here to recharge. I don't want you there for more than half an hour at a time: Weil may claim he removed the virus generation program, but I'm not sure he's that good… Who told you." Because Phantom should have been surprised that Zero's body contained a virus generation program. "Tell me it isn't active." That Phantom hadn't seen it just now.

"No one did, and as far as I can tell it isn't. Axl told me that under absolutely no circumstances was I allowed to try to copy Zero. You, in an emergency, but never Zero. Not even if the world was about to end."

"I'm surprised he told you it was alright to try to copy me," X murmured.

Phantom reminded him that, "This was after the virus, and Dr. Wily's AI, had been deleted."

"So you know why Axl's kind exist." And Axl's kind was Phantom's kind. Or close enough. X had been working on copying an android to create close facsimiles for decades. Trying to create a reploid based on Axl that wasn't a copy of his nanites that would end up like Lumine's clones had been difficult, not to mention illegal, but he'd wanted to show Axl that X really did believe that Axl had a right to exist. That Axl's kind weren't doomed to be evil or go irregular any more than the reploids derived from X were. To give him a son to raise right, to pay forward what Red had done for him and Axl could never repay.

"To get data on you that could be used to create a virus that would affect you, as well as creating new viruses by copying and modifying the Maverick Virus. Also, to find a way to take over and kill Zero permanently, to punish him for his treason and make sure that he couldn't save you again." There might have been more to it than that, but Phantom was quite sure those were three reasons.

"How do you feel about that?"

"My feelings are irrelevant."

"Not to me," X reminded him. Not to his father. And wasn't X the 'Master' here?

"Commander Zero is also a Wilybot. As for races that originate with Dr. Wily?" Phantom looked at Aurora. "Countless elves have given their lives for the sake of this world." He didn't need to bring up Axl's own heroism.

It would just depress them.

X examined him thoughtfully again, and nodded. "No more than thirty minutes every two hours. I want to check you over every twenty-four hours: if I'm not available, then you will _wait_. Speaking of waiting – _Twilight Phantom Light_."

Phantom was trying really hard to regain his normal ninjaly composure, but that still startled him.

"It will take you at least two weeks to evolve around that, but in two weeks the situation will have changed, anyway." It should buy enough time.

"You shut down my body?"

"Yes. I can't be found. Not yet. I have too much to do and not enough power, energy and attention to do it with," X said calmly. "Don't worry, they won't recycle your body for parts while you're gone. Well, if they do, I'll build you a new one."

"But… All you had to do was order me…"

"Phantom," X said sternly, light flaring off the crystals around them. "You're a newgen. You should know how your mind works by now. Don't make promises you're not capable of keeping. Not when situations change and they're your siblings. I appreciate how you've tried to be loyal and reliable, but you're my son as well as Axl's. I'm not going to put you in a situation where I know you're going to have to break your word because I can't tell you everything you'd need to know to make the right decision."

In point of fact, if X had ordered him, Phantom would have held to it. No matter what.

The 'selling point' of so-called New Generation reploids, the reason Lumine's clones had gone into production in large quantities instantly, was supposed to be that they were immune to all mental control, especially the virus. This meant that they were a little short on self-control, and self-discipline. Not when they constantly reevaluated all situations for maximum advantage, were immune to peer pressure, didn't form habits, couldn't regard 'because I said so,' as a reason for anything and generally were impossible to reliably influence except by making things worth their while in that specific moment.

When X was keeping secrets, then if Phantom had been in a situation where, from what he knew at the time, he needed to tell his siblings what was going on, well, Axl would have blithely done it, and shrugged at anyone who yelled at him about discipline, because they should have known better than to expect him not to follow his own best judgment. If it weren't for Axl's pathological disrespect for orders, he wouldn't have gone to Giga City to make sure X and Zero were okay and met Phantom's mothers.

The trouble was that Phantom had found a way around that. And he would rather die than let X find out, because he'd seen how his father looked when he was heartbroken and this was worse than what Harpuia had probably done.

Actually, they were probably equally sick and wrong, but X had more bad memories associated with Phantom's method.

"Actually, this works out for the best. I can use you to guard Aurora while I'm gone," Commander X said thoughtfully, unaware of Phantom's dark thoughts, as he stroked Aurora's hair, hoping the artificial sensation would give her an anchor.


	21. Those We Treasure

_I have been tinkering with this chapter for quite awhile, and I'm still not quite happy with it. Feedback would be very much appreciated. I'm having a bit of trouble writing X in this in general, because X in X series is, well, a certain way, and this is an X who has lost the luxury of being nice and thinking about others and all those hallmarks of his character. So it's a bit of OOC Is Serious Business, since what I'm trying to do here is show that he is Not Well. And still wanting to save the world, but he sealed himself away in the first place because he was aware that one of the biggest dangers to it now was _himself_._

_A broken hero... _

_Speaking of which, I'm aware that there are some people who aren't fans of non-het relationships that are reading this (which I find quite flattering and do appreciate and such), so since thoughts on one of those were pretty central to this chapter, I tried to keep them, well, non-sexual, and fitting into the general aura of fucked-upness. Of course, on the flipside, the opinions of characters (especially villians) aren't necessarily those of the author (who totally ships those two, because respect & trust are sexier than sex). _

_Also, trying to figure out how to adapt some of the lyrics in Misha's version of Exec_Purger into a system notification while maintaining the badassery of the most awesome antivirus ever. Ah, _Ar Tonelico_. 1, anyway - don't get me started on 3, although some of the music's good. Invincible viruses trying to wipe out humanity that can't be killed because attacking them in the real world does absolutely nothing? There's a hymn for that. _

* * *

The sight reminded him of the passage about how the lamb would lie down with the lion, but this world was far from paradise. He would admit (at least to himself) that it made sense for a lamb to rest near a lion when the lion wouldn't eat it: it kept other predators away. Especially when the lion had somehow gotten its wires crossed and decided to protect the young, tender, tasty meal.

Still, while that was part of why something like this had happened in the past, the only possible explanation for the current situation was that the lamb was suicidal.

It was one thing for a lion tamer to stick their head in the lion's mouth while everything was under control. It was another thing to do it when the lion was asleep, and they could die if it so much as yawned.

He had to wonder if the idiot knew how much danger he was in, and if he would _care_. The reason (coughexcusecough) he was doing this was obvious: the two energy types generated waveforms in frequencies that would either react in interesting and explosive ways or dampen each other. The idiot was effectively using his out-of-body-experience as a signal jammer, in order to keep Zero from showing up on Weil's radar. It wouldn't have fooled _his_ technology: it would have fooled Duo's, and certainly Weil's. Even when the idiot left, _if _he left, Zero's energies would have been reduced and scrambled enough that it would take some time for them to become noticeable in the background noise. Between the virus and Weil's baby elves the planet was already effectively irradiated with this energy.

This was why Weil hadn't already detected the dark elf, but if X stayed here for too long instead of going back there to dampen her, Weil would be able to detect her again. The background noise wouldn't be a problem: Weil knew her exact personal signature, and his equipment would be looking for it specifically.

He might have to do something if it came to that. Not that he cared if Neo Arcadia was destroyed and all but one of its inhabitants slaughtered… Well, to be precise, he did care, but while he was all for the idea he could only take so much of people whining about what monsters they were and how this was all their fault when clearly someone else deserved the credit. The Dark Elf still blamed herself for the Elf Wars, and he found that so very tiresome.

Regardless, the Dark Elf was designed to make her impossible to hide from Weil (Weil was an _idiot)_, while Dr. Wily had built some damn stealth capability into his greatest creation. Not that there was much left of those systems, when the body was one he'd created for something completely different. Then there was Axl's wish for his body to evolve into something that would let Zero survive without the virus and Zero's own desire to change, combined with Dr. Light's hibernation concept (without the alleged ethical simulations), which was just a handful of the things that had screwed everything up.

When he looked at this mess as though it was an interesting alien relic or something he'd just found, he could acknowledge that it was fairly interesting and there was probably a lot he could do with some of the concepts here and the ways they were developed.

When he looked at this as what remained of his greatest creation, he felt like he wanted to… Beat his head against the wall? Facepalm to hide his face so he didn't have to see this mess and cringe? Get drunk?

In the old days, seeing a failure like this would have outraged him and revitalized him, inspired him to build something that didn't have these flaws, do it _right _this time, but…

He hated to admit it, but he seemed to have the same problem that had eventually driven Dr. Light's remnant AI to suicide (oh, it was a heroic enough sacrifice, but the death wish had been there) and driven 'Master X' from Neo Arcadia.

Master X. _Master. _All his hard work, and it was one of Dr. Light's creations that had taken over the world while his own alternated between trying to protect people he was supposed to kill and angsting. If only he could figure out where he'd gone wrong: he was so _sure _he'd solved the problem when he built this one, and then it had turned out like this. He didn't want to just keep building failures. Zero, Axl, Lumine… Bah.

The definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over, performing the experiment, analyzing the data, and then ignoring that result. Denial. Delusion. Refusal to face reality. A waste of time and effort that could be spent trying to find another way to accomplish the desired result.

The person he'd been when he was human would have despised his weak-minded remnant. Give up? Think there might be something he couldn't do? Never. Lack of persistence wasn't how he'd developed all his technologies. Genius was mostly perspiration, not just inspiration.

Still, inspiration was an ingredient, and it was hard to feel inspired anymore.

Jaded. That might be the word. After all this time, after the reasons this had started in the first place were dead and dust, it was hard to keep giving a damn.

He'd read the Red Fairy Book and other collections as a kid: he'd read half the library. It had seemed very stupid, to him, for dragons to kidnap princesses. Well, perhaps they'd been after the jewelry and brightly-colored clothes, like magpies, and the princess had come with it, but if they'd been after food there was certainly better and less troublesome out in the fields. Still, silk wouldn't last very long in a dragon's nest: they built their nests out of metal. So if they were going to steal humans for materials, wouldn't a knight in shining armor have been a more logical target than a princess? More metal. If they were after companionship, a human wearing armor would also be far less breakable and more competent than a usual princess, although there were some quite unusual and intelligent ones in the _real _fairy tales.

Maybe that was why Zero had decided he wanted to keep Sigma, X and Colonel. Iris seemed to break the pattern at first, but there'd been some metal in her after all.

It was certainly why X had become so dependent on Zero, over the decades.

Zero didn't break easily. Zero endured. Zero was someone that kept him company that could survive all the danger this put him in, because X's friends were targets.

When everyone else you had known was dead, when you had lived so much longer than those around you, it was hard not to get attached to the only other person around who had known you back then. The only reminder of the world you'd known, the person you used to be.

Maybe there was some truth in the idea that people defined themselves by other people. Without Zero, X, Dr. Light's hope, the one who didn't want to kill and all that various rubbish had begun to cease to be himself.

What was the point of being Dr. Wily without Dr. Light? X had been a second Dr. Light, at first: someone building children, a new race. Then he'd been a second Megaman. But now?

Was he really so defined by his enemies?

X's enemy had been the virus, a _thing _that twisted people, good people. Zero, his destined enemy, had been a reminder that those were still good people in there. That it didn't have to be this way, that he didn't want to kill them. He wanted to save them.

Then the virus had been defeated, Zero had gone to sleep and X's next enemy was Dr. Weil.

Then Neo Arcadia itself, built of wreckage and broken souls scrabbling for survival and clawing at each other. All the worst of human and reploid nature.

It honestly made him glad he'd never succeeded in conquering the world. Watching X deal with that bullshit had almost killed any desire on his part to ever do it. And he couldn't even gloat about how Dr. Light's hope was fading, not when there wasn't anyone left to gloat to.

X wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

X despised him. He didn't hate him, he despised him. Otherwise, perhaps trying to kill him might have given X something to fight for, a reason to keep going in order to spite him, but honestly, X didn't care enough to fight him. Not when there were _real _problems, not the whining of a petty old ghost.

Not when X didn't even have the will to tackle those real problems anymore.

He knew X couldn't be awake, otherwise he would have opened his eyes and told Wily to get the hell out of Zero's systems. He might even have tried to force the issue. Been able to fight if it was for Zero.

Yet here X was, putting himself in a position where Zero might accidently kill him and never even know it. With just a flex of the power Wily had built him with. Just shifting in his sleep. X could be crushed, and that weakness should make him gloat. He should be glad that _finally _Zero would kill X. That after all these years, one of his creations would triumph over Dr. Light's.

Ah, there. It made him raise the projected memory of an eyebrow to see those energies start to curl around X. If he was a romantic idiot he might think of it as an embrace, but it was probably more of a subconscious, animal reaction. Trying to engulf the irritant, like how oysters made pearls. Or perhaps swallowing him, although X was probably indigestible. Those energies might float in there, sapped and unable to wake up, like a fly in amber.

X might even like that idea. To be with Zero for eternity, or at least until the heat-death of the universe finished off even Dr. Wily's immortal creation, unless Zero found a way to kill himself. To sleep, like he had in the capsule, without having to remember everything he'd seen, or think dark thoughts. No more killing. No more having to face what he had become, and force himself to refrain from killing, knowing that people would die because of his inaction but even more would die if he acted.

The fool Lightbot wasn't just sleeping: he was _smiling _in his sleep. If he was aware at all, he probably thought that curl of negative energy was affection instead of cilia. The claws and tentacles of an upgraded and weaponized alien organism, cold and pitiless. When awake, it was able to fake it. It wanted to pretend it was better than that. That he wouldn't hurt X. Asleep? Unthinking, the way X was right now?

He kicked X's ankle, hard. There was a reason androids were so heavily armored there: it was an important part of the body. This wasn't human anatomy, but he'd still be alerted to damage there.

It did startle him, X's eyes did flash open, but he calmed again in a way that was insulting. As good as saying, 'Oh, it's only you.' Someone he didn't care about. Not next to Zero, not when he was next to Zero, even if only in spirit, after so long.

"_Get up before you die_." When they'd met before, X had worn armor. War had resumed, and X's mental avatar still wore a robe. Went unarmored. Yet more proof that even on the subconscious level, X didn't care about protecting himself anymore. Didn't care about staying alive: and X's nonreaction proved that. He didn't even care enough about Wily's claim there was a threat to his life to ask for details. "_How do you think Zero would feel, when I congratulated him on finally killing you_?"

That made him raise his head a little.

"_Get up,"_ Wily ordered. "_Stop using a killer's mind as a pillow."_ What an idiot.

"_I… I don't want to,"_ X said softly. He knew he should. By his clock, he should have gone back hours ago, to check on Phantom and make sure Aurora was holding up alright. The poor cyber elf's sacrifice had already suppressed Zero's energies: X should only have stayed long enough to reinforce that. "_I know that I need to, but I don't want to._" He had to do what he could, without killing, without letting himself become as cold and cruel a creature as this ghost that just didn't care about human and reploid lives, didn't care what the virus it created did to them. He had to, it was his duty, they were his children…

But Dr. Light had wanted his creation to be able to follow its hopes, live out its dreams, live free. Live the life X wanted to have.

And he wanted to stay here.

With the only friend he had left. The only person that didn't look up to him, that didn't make demands of him. The one who was willing to protect him, instead of expecting him to protect them.

He wanted to _rest._

His eyes began to drift shut.

Wily bent down, grabbed his shin, and hurled him away from Zero. In the real world, a human would have had a very hard time throwing even an unarmored reploid like that. He would have wrenched his shoulder out of its socket or something.

It took X a moment to orient himself, to metaphorically get to his feet. "…_Thank you,"_ he said, although there was absolutely no gratitude in it, only an acknowledgement.

"_You were using your will and energies to block his_." Of course it had sapped his willpower. X had half-accidently retrofitted himself with an equivalent to Zero's abilities, then later he'd honed them based on what had been discovered about Zero and elf abilities, but he hadn't been built for this and wasn't anywhere near Zero's level. Especially when he was like this, just a pale shadow of the hunter that had been strong and strong-willed enough to fight beside Zero as an equal. Just trying to limit Zero had drained him dry: he was no match for Dr. Wily's creation on this level. _"I'd ask if you were rational again," _but when had he ever been?

X took a step forward, naked longing appearing in his green eyes, and Wily knew X wasn't looking at him. He half-turned around to see more cilia reaching out, a reaction to the thing they'd reacted to disappearing. Was the threat gone/was the morsel still in range to be caught and eaten?

And X was probably convinced that Zero's dreaming mind was reaching out for him. Missed him, even in his sleep, even though he'd only been peeled away from Zero's side a few seconds ago. X missed Zero that desperately, after all.

X stopped himself after that initial step, surprisingly. He stood there, _wanting _to reach out, wanting to return to Zero's partially-unsheathed claws, and, honestly, if Wily's enemy wanted to kill himself, or wanted to reduce himself to the level of a peripheral system, just another tool of Wily's greatest creation, who was he to say no? When he was the one who had come up with the concept of using this substance's native capabilities to reduce androids to that level, to allow his creation to shape and rule a world? Be worthy of the title messiah, a king with the power of a god?

X didn't worship Zero, but he still couldn't tear himself away. The alleged cyber-elf's aura wavered, trembling with the force of his emotions. Quite a pretty visual effect.

He wished he knew how he felt about that, other than the aesthetic appreciation. The captured princess, the hero broken, stripped of his armor and reduced to this.

He should be enjoying this, and yet it was just… disturbing. "_Don't come back until you've figured out a way to passively keep him from scrambling your mind. By _accident." Although Zero already made X's feelings keep him from thinking clearly. Wily wanted no credit for how that had come about. He'd been absolutely enraged when he found out. Zero crushing on opposite-sex clone of the Lightbot was one thing: pathetic, but infectable. Once Repliforce had escaped out of sortie range of earth, Sigma would have infected them, and then Iris could have been used to tempt Zero. If Zero _had _to have feelings, at least feelings for Iris would have been _useful _feelings, ones that could be used to put him back on the proper path once she went maverick.

Except she'd tried to tempt him into abandoning humanity before she was even infected, and fucked that up. Lightbot. _Knockoff_ Lightbot, for that matter. They _never _helped matters.

It had been pathetic and aggravating, but it had been embarrassing enough that Zero was in the hunters in the first place. It had just become one more indignity to seethe about.

Finding out that Zero had somehow actually _ended up in bed _with _the _one remaining actual Lightbot, even if X was only a quarter as effective and half as frustrating as his older brother? That no, he hadn't just been guarding X's rooms recently as part of the duty he'd taken upon himself because of his own issues and what Sigma had said to him when the Sigma virus was still pretending to be General Sigma, X's son and a guardian, just like these four? People had gossiped and claimed they were together for decades: there hadn't been any change in the secondhand intelligence he'd received until they'd been together for months and X had worn Zero down until he was okay with public displays of affection. A kiss on the cheek, a damn kiss on the cheek, and in some of Europe before the cataclysm something like that would have been perfectly normal for people who were just friends, and the damn Lightbot had been so casual about it, so sweet, and… This wasn't Romeo and Juliet! At least in Romeo and Juliet, the two idiots killed themselves and ended the spectators' misery! (And in the process, their families' feud…)

He'd been too enraged to even _speak _for days, and then it turned out that the whole thing had eventually given Zero the courage to turn himself in.

Wily could have gotten the mavericks to steal him out of containment – Zero was far easier to deal with when he was asleep – but at least, he'd thought, if he was sleeping in a capsule sharing Wily's secrets with those unworthy idiots, he wasn't sleeping with the damn enemy.

It was fortunate for his temper that X didn't acknowledge his words: he just vanished.

Wily knew that it was the reminder that he could come back, that he would be working towards coming back the entire time that had enabled him to go.

Infinite potential. Hope. That was what X was built on, and he'd lost it.

In more ways than one.

So when hope had failed, it would take a force stronger than hope to keep him chained to this world. To restrain a being built on free will who seemed to have a truly powerful death wish. To override that will and bind him.

It had been fascinating to watch that in action, Wily thought, and was a little relieved that he could still find things interesting, still worth observing and figuring out how to convert them into tools, technologies. Means of accomplishing his goals and creating great things.

Maybe Zero's play at being good wasn't as worthless as it seemed. When Wily's virus had failed, and this clearly worked… He shouldn't ignore all this data, after all.

Maybe the last Lightbot and his greatest creation, now his greatest obstacle, really would end up dying because of each other. Ending the feud between their families.

By handing him the victory.

No. He wouldn't accept a victory like that, not after all his hard work. He refused to win because of something so _idiotic_…

_**System Alteration Notification - **_

_**Infel Phira executes Program: Purger.**_

_**You are isolated and kicked from the system by Program: Purger executed by (X_Ansul_ArTonelico connecting via SolFage emulator to the account of) Zero_Ansul_InfelPhira.**_

_**Addendum: Zero's mind is not your property. He wants nothing to do with you: leave him alone.**_

X hadn't added an 'or else.' With X, ever since the seventh maverick war, the unspoken answer to 'or else what' had been, 'or else I'll fucking kill you.' The seventh time he'd fought Wily, X's brother had decided that no matter what happened, Rock didn't want to kill another living person, and so nothing Wily could do had been able to make him. The seventh time he'd fought Sigma, X had admitted that no, there wasn't an alternative to killing the enemies that insisted on standing in his way, no matter what X wanted.

X had paid the price for his brother's nobility, and X had no mercy left.

Wily stood in ordinary cyberspace and fumed. 'Zero was not his property?' Oh, so he and his systems were X's property now, apparently, if Zero had given him the ability to use Zero's account, Zero's own will, to override even his creator's control?

Alright. Screw standards. Screw any philosophical objection to cheap tactics and victories. He was going to strangle that Lightbot _himself. _It wasn't like it would take more than a minute to get his access back, but it was the principle of the thing, dammit. _He_ was the one that hacked and controlled Lightbots, getting them to fight for him. If X wanted to hack _his _goddamn system (Zero's soul, same thing), if X was going to convert _his _creations to X's side, if X was going to fight using Wily's tactics now, then X could see how he liked it when Wily played by what were supposed to be _X's _rules.

He saved the damn Lightbot's life and the bastard had given him the finger on the way out.

Oh, _this meant war_.

He was going to kill X and _then _he was going to kill Zero.

The goddamn brats would suffer more if it was in that order.

(If he had any interest in being fair, he almost might have thanked the fool Lightbot for giving him a new lease on unlife.)

* * *

_Some of the people I have been having review response and other PM conversations with should understand why I am now grinning evilly. _

_Partially because the Hijacked by Ganon trope really should be Hijacked by Wily: Wily's done it more times._


	22. Tree of Knowledge of

"This is… not what I expected." This was when Zero really grasped that it had been a century.

There was green stuff down there. He could, they could, see it from the much-eroded wall of the crater that contained, no, that _was _Area Zero. The Eurasia crash site. Green stuff. _Nature_.

It was almost a curse word.

If Zero had been prone to such things, he might have heaved a long-suffering sigh, because _this _wasn't going to be fun. It seemed that Ciel was right, and emotions were the easiest things to remember, even though his emotions were definitely not normal. So, what came to him now was that nature was a pain in the ass. Always having to be careful not to smash or set fire to stuff, and the mavericks (the word just came to him, which was a good sign that he was managing to integrate what he remembered and what he was told – he wasn't permanently processor-damaged) would be trying to destroy the place. Which they could do in all _sorts _of ways, since nature was squishy like humans. Which made sense, since humans were part of nature.

So he had to watch for the mavericks trying to kill people, and trying to infect people, and leaving timers rigged to spill chemicals, and dirty low-yield nukes, and… A massive pain in the ass, that was what nature was.

He'd expected twisty canyons, bare rock and jagged metal. Perfect. He might have said it was his natural habitat, if that applied to him. People shooting at him and getting around various obstacles was honestly _calming_, he'd found. If something was shooting at him, then he knew what he needed to kill, and he could just kill it. There, done. Simple.

Dealing with people, and not killing them, that could be stressful, although by this point he was pretty sure that none of them were secretly evil or just trying to use him. The kid was one of those people that _got _used and honestly liked it that way (like the original?). One of those people who honestly felt all proud of themselves and happy because they'd managed to help someone or make the world a better place, even if they didn't get any credit.

People like that and their weirdness fascinated him. He was pretty sure they always had. It was a weird feeling, to realize that there was something genuinely good in the world. It was… nice to have around.

He was pretty sure that Ciel was right, and he'd looked after X, because people like that didn't look after themselves, which was part of why he was morbidly certain that they were as rare and lucky a find as a four-leaf clover.

Whatever _those _were.

"I didn't know there was a mechanical jungle plantation here." Lark frowned and pulled up her maps.." Who would waste all the effort of building this trying to detox such a trashed area? The fake trees were mostly for getting radiation and heavy metals out of the soil, neither of which Area Zero really had.

"There are some rocks that are green," Ciel told her, but it was still weird.

"Those are _trees_," Copy-X said, amazed. He'd activated some of his sensors since Zero appeared annoyed in a way that probably meant he would have been dismayed if the ancient let problems dismay him. Instead, it was clear that he was trying to figure out a way around this… this miracle. "They're solar powered." Of course, Neo Arcadia's hydroponics farms had to be sealed in, so while they made use of clear roofs for the sun and the greenhouse effect when they could, there were some that had to be artificially lit. The ones built early on, that were buried as far inside the structure as possible, so they'd be hard to target and destroy in an assault. "Just like the mechanical trees." Neo Arcadia tapped the purification forests for power – the fake leaves were solar panels, and in a good year they produced more than they needed.

In bad years, Neo Arcadia would tap them anyway, especially the ones in the northern hemisphere during the city's winter.

"But… what are they doing here?" Almost absently, he started hovering again, wanting to go down and take a look. "There are the limited ecology areas, but those are mostly desert, chapparal, or in among the mechanical trees, where the soil's pure." Scrub brush. "And of course there are the coastal areas, or some of them." Leviathan had managed to detox the ocean a lot, after she was turned on, and the still-living things were those that had adapted. "Where there's water and the temperature doesn't vary too much, but why…" How? How had this place recovered? When it had been devastated, smashed flat? It should have been one of the most devastated places in the world, it shouldn't have a _forest_.

"I have no idea." Zero looked suspicious now. "From what I… remember?" He might have said 'from the way I feel,' except he didn't trust feelings, especially his own. Not when his default setting, his true nature, was a killer without compassion. Actually, it relieved him a little, to find that he was so good at ignoring his feelings, and feelings like that. It meant that he must have known this was _wrong _even back then. He'd been trying to rise above his programming for a _long_ time. "This place was… a battlefield." Yes, that was a given, but what else? "I should have been at a significant advantage here." Why had he felt that way? Was it just about the terrain? No, he was certain there was something else.

Power.

This should have been his place, his demesne: he would have been in control here, unstoppable here. Certainly able to keep anyone from getting close enough to these three to hurt them.

He curled his fingers in, and remembered power flowing through his body, flowing into him, his mind opening… the knowledge that he could become so much _more_. That he could truly do anything, anything at all, and all he had to do was…

He _stopped _that memory, just as his past self had _stopped _himself from reaching after that promise of infinite power. _His _power.

Something dark and terrible, merciless, that grabbed on to people and didn't let them go, made them his, everything his property, and that which opposed him _had no right to exist_.

So what did? What did have a right to exist? Did he, when he was a monster, a killer? Yes, he was the strongest, and the strong survived, the strong won, but was that enough? Did he want that to be the way of the world? Couldn't he dream of something better? Couldn't he wish there was another way?

"He spared my life."

Huh?

"Ciel. The person that gave me that beam saber: I remember now." Not everything, but something so very important. "He spared my life." Yes, that was a completely random thing to say, and they were probably already worried about his mental state if they had any brains (which they did), but this was important.

This feeling. This _wonder_. "He wasn't… he wasn't fighting to destroy. He wanted to protect, to keep them safe. Because they were people, and they were alive." They were people, and he'd cared about them, and Zero had killed them, and he hadn't hated Zero for it.

Zero had been his enemy, and whoever this was _hadn't killed him_. Hadn't cut him down without remorse. Hadn't _wanted _to. He'd been fighting to save people, even Zero, and killing him would have been missing the point entirely, defeating the entire purpose. Zero had been his enemy, had killed people, people he cared for, and he hadn't seen Zero as the enemy. Just a person. Someone worth caring about. Someone who needed help. Someone who might be worth fighting for, might be a good person under there.

Someone who could use his skills for something besides murder.

Zero had known he was a monster, back then. He'd been programmed to fight to ensure his own survival, to take everything, but he hadn't wanted to. His survival wasn't a very good reason to fight when he really hadn't thought he should exist.

But _there was another way_. A path besides death. Something so far outside his programming that he'd barely been able to comprehend the edges of it, but it had filled him with this amazed wonder. Managed to touch him when pity and compassion couldn't.

There was good in this world, there was another way. He could choose to fight for life instead of death. If he was nothing but a sword, if his program made him a monster, a demon-warrior, then he could use that power to protect this precious ideal. A world where people cared about each other, without needing a reason. Good people, the opposite of what he was.

If he was a destroyer, then he would use that power to clear a path for those who would build a future worth fighting for.

The kid, and Ciel – they wanted to make this world a better place. Zero couldn't understand _why_, but neither did they, exactly. Just that, well, wasn't it better when people weren't starving, terrified, murdered helplessly? Why would anyone chose a world of war and suffering?

Even if that was the world Zero was suited to, he didn't have to live there. And neither did they, if he could protect them from it. Let them build that world of their dreams, let him see it and know that he had contributed to it, he had done something worthwhile with this power of his.

He thought this, and he felt _at peace_. It was such a strange feeling that it took him a moment to identify it. Normally he never felt tranquility outside of the battlefield. Killing natural, everything else was a strain. Trying to remember to act normal, to remember to pretend to care. To act like he had a life, when he really didn't, outside of work. To act like he was more than a deadly weapon or a beast desperately trying to keep itself caged.

Trying not to break the precious things.

He could kill all three of them so _easily_.

There wouldn't be shock and betrayal in those eyes: they simply wouldn't understand. They thought he was a good person. The legend: he must have somehow managed to be a good person back then. And he was protecting them now. He'd thought it was _wrong _that they revered a monster, but _they didn't know he was a monster_. He'd managed to fake it _that well_. He'd managed to do the right thing long enough, and well enough, that they thought him a hero.

The equal of X.

So he'd lived up to the hopes of the person who had given him this sword, and his trust.

This place, this Area Zero that bore his name, had been in his power. Now it was like this. Not a devastated wasteland, but a place where fragile living things could grow and be. "X has something to do with this." Another sudden subject change, but it was also something he knew. X was the one who had said that no one could come here, right? He'd protected this place.

"But why did he keep it secret? Obviously converting it into farmland could have destroyed the topsoil while it was still fragile and kept the area from spreading, but we could have planted fruit trees. Yes, it would have drained Neo Arcadia's resources to try to enlarge and protect this area, but there are lots of ways of getting resources from even a limited ecology without damaging it." Suddenly, Copy-X's eyes widened.

Maybe it had only become like this fairly recently. Maybe this was X's project, the one he'd vanished to work on, because Copy-X couldn't imagine that he, that anyone, would just abandon the city. Maybe X was somewhere down there.

He hoped X wouldn't be too disappointed by him and his actions. He'd tried his best not to embarrass him or disgrace his name, he'd tried to help Neo Arcadia, but he knew he couldn't measure up to the original.

Ciel had to get to Neo Arcadia, where it was safe, but if X was down there, he had to go looking for him. But where, and how, in this vast expanse? Maybe there was a system that would detect intruders?

"So there's food down there." In Ciel's limited experience with biomass, most of it was edible, or useful in some way, because no one would go to the trouble and energy expenditure of growing and maintaining plants unless it was worth it. Even the little garden atrium on the top floor, between the guardians' quarters, only grew apple trees, nasturtiums and other edible plants, according to that show Niege had done on private gardening and food production in Neo Arcadia. Ciel had been led through that atrium when she was there with Copy-X. Cerveau had tried to start growing strawberries as a nutritional supplement for her after the show, but neither of them had been able to figure out how to keep them from dying. "I wonder if you can make computer chips out of wood?" After all, you could make computer chips, or the equivalent, out of animal tissue, or evolution could anyway. The human brain, for example.

Honestly, Ciel knew how to watch her mouth better than that, even after living out in the wastes with Cerveau for so long. If she'd said everything that came to her, thought aloud all the time, people would have known she was really weird instead of just thinking it.

But Zero had just told her something so incredibly important and personal out of the blue, and it was clearly a little awkward for him, so she'd thought it might lighten the mood a bit, make him not feel so weird. Except now he was looking at her in a way she recognized. "I reminded you of someone again?"

"Yes." He still didn't know who. "We should get down there."

When they were at the bottom, Lark suddenly gasped.

"What?" he asked her, since it sounded shocked instead of, 'there's an enemy over there!'

"You're stepping on the…" What was the word? "Grass!"

Zero almost looked around for a Keep Off The Grass sign. "That's alright: it'll live."

"But it's all… crushed!" Lark, who was flying, pointed at one of his footprints. The poor grass was all smashed into the dirt! She tried to carefully pull one of the blades loose, so it could stick up properly.

"It'll live. Nature's fragile, but not _that _fragile, otherwise there wouldn't be any of it left anywhere."

"That's good. I was running out of rocks." Ciel had been carefully picking her way from rock to bare patch to tree root to rock.

"I found raspberries!" Ciel's creation had taken off on recon as soon as Zero had let them get moving. He seemed exceedingly excited and proud of himself.

"Is that okay, though?" Ciel asked a minute later, looking at the bush. "I mean, the area was prohibited to keep people from taking resources from it, right?" As well as finding out about this place. Or worse, digging it up for the metal.

"It's ok. If you don't eat it, the birds will. Just don't eat all of it." Copy-X was pretty sure there were more bushes. "I recognize most of these species. It's possible the seeds got here naturally and spread." Possible, but such a wide area? "A lot of them are sustainers," the plants and trees that were put in limited ecologies to hold the soil in place, enrich it with nitrogen and so on, "but a lot of them are edible, too. I've seen a lot of apple trees, but they're not bearing fruit yet." Apple trees wouldn't set fruit until the climate control settings were adjusted down for at least one night, if he recalled correctly.

"You studied the ecologies?" Ciel asked him.

He blinked at her. "I had to study most things." Because X knew everything about how everything worked. "And it's a lot like hydroponics, except instead of needing nutrient fluid and all the pipes with the fluid in them, it needs soil, which requires other plants. And insects." Humans could eat a lot of insects, and sometimes they were the best source for certain proteins that children especially needed, with their developing brains, but they moved and were more obviously alive. It wasn't murder any more than scrapping an old mechanaloids was murder, but he still found it kind of creepy. Imagine, having to kill someone else just so that you would have enough energy and materials!

Levaithan had said that was what nature was like: it seemed soft and squishy from a reploid's perspective, but it was really constant warfare. It was hard to imagine that there had been animals once that had been able to kill humans even after the humans developed proper technology and guns and things.

Now he found himself worrying about where Ciel put her feet, because snakes and spiders and scorpions, oh my. At least she wasn't walking on the rocks anymore: didn't things like that hide under rocks?

At least they weren't in Australia yet, and they'd be teleporting directly to Neo Arcadia instead of having to traverse the Wasteland around the city. Australia had _lots _of nasty small creatures. Sometimes they got into the outskirts of the city, so it was a good thing humans didn't live in the outskirts. Of course, Fefnir would be blowing up the outskirts now, so Weil's mechanaloids couldn't sneak in there.

He hoped everyone was doing alright.

"Birds, you said?" Zero suddenly asked him. "I don't hear any." He looked around. "If this area has really been left alone for so long, they shouldn't have any reason to fear reploids." Ciel, maybe, but… "Do you smell that?"

"Smell what?" Ciel asked, sniffing. Lark didn't bother: she could detect a few airborne chemicals, but nowhere near as well as a human. "It smells a little like a storm. Well, the air's humid, but ozone?" Ozone meant machinery or thunder.

"I heard distant thunder earlier," Zero told them. "While we were approaching the edge. …And you seem to know what I'm talking about."

"Thunder on a clear day." Copy-X nodded. "Of course. Weil would want to destroy this place too." Living things outside of his control? When he'd meant to wreck the world? "That must be Sage Harpuia. Don't worry, I'm sure he won't target us by accident."

"General Harpuia is here?" Lark straightened automatically and looked over her dash boots, just in case her commanding officer was about to walk in on them.

"No, it's part of the contingency planning." And he really shouldn't say more, except perhaps: "Remember that we got the weather network fixed?"

"Using the weather control satellites to set up ionic imbalances and produce targeted lightning strikes? Nice." Ciel grinned.

There was a bit more to it than that, but he really shouldn't talk about it, so Copy-X just nodded.

"So if he can't send planes to bomb, or larger units, that leaves…" Zero looked at Lark. "Get the human airborne, _don't _go under any tree branches. For that matter, stay at least ten feet above the treetops." All that cover meant someone hidden by leaves could snipe the human, but what he was thinking of wouldn't have the power supply for a lot of shots anyway. "There's no teleport shield here, so be ready." They could get enemies dropped on their heads at any time: Weil wouldn't send them in overland, not when they'd get glassed from orbit. "And…" Zero stabbed his arm forward as the beam of light was still materializing. The grey-green snake didn't get to hiss before its head was crushed. "Scatter!"

_Claws? _Ciel wondered as she helped Lark get a hold of her. _Zero shouldn't have claws_. They weren't in the design.

Copy-X was already in combat mode, trying to shoot them as fast as he could and wishing his physical frame didn't have to obey the laws of physics. He could target them much faster than his arm and subweapons could move and fire.

Of course, he didn't scatter, he had to cover Ciel… then he realized why Zero had given the order. The teleports weren't aiming for Ciel: they were all around Zero. Even when Zero tried moving away from their original location, they followed him, not the other three.

"Um!" Lark would have called Copy-X's name to get his attention, but he didn't have one, at least not that he'd told her. "Take her!" Lark had to heal Zero! They were trying to swarm him, inject him with something, and that couldn't be good.

Copy-X dived back down to take Ciel, holding her with the hand that wasn't formed into a buster as she tried to shoot them with one of her energy pistols. She wasn't really in a position to aim, but she figured that as long as she didn't hit Zero, hitting a few of them was better than not hitting any.

"I _thought_," Zero yelled up at them, teeth bared, whirling and kicking and swiping them with his claws, "I told you to scatter!" Even if he couldn't use the fancy moves, he considered asking Ciel to toss him his beam saber, because a longer claw would be nice.

"They're after you!" Lark told him, after she finished restoring his energy so he could fight off whatever it was they were trying to inject him with.

"Really? I hadn't noticed!" Who did she think she was, his spotter? "I _order _you to get out of here!" Without a teleport shield up, this area was not defensible, and if Weil decided to send some of these after the three of them? "I can survive a lightning strike, so _I order you to get clear!_" If they had eyes in the sky, and this Harpuia was paying attention, which presumably he would be given how important the kid and the scientist were, then hopefully he'd be cold-blooded enough to do the right thing.

Zero felt himself changing, preparing to deal with electric shocks, just as his hands had adapted. Paying attention to it would probably have given him some useful information about exactly what his capabilities were (besides infinite and that other nonsense that kept getting tossed up), except he had mini mechanaloids to kill and the kid was getting out of here right _now_.

There.

Pity whatever that was hadn't worked on the lieutenant.

It was reminding him of the feeling from back then. Black power in his veins, except it shouldn't be making him dizzy. No, it was someone else that it had made dizzy…

* * *

_Regarding making computer chips out of wood: it's possible in-universe, Wily did it. I've been reinforcing Ciel's genius inventor/potential mad scientist credentials by making references to Wily a few times - Zero sometimes picks up on that. If I was still following _Girl Genius_, I might be doing shout-outs to Agatha Heterodyne instead, but I've decided it's one of those webcomics that is best archive binged once complete. _

_If you want a death ray, massive amounts of free energy, a MacGuyvered desalination device in a hurry or a robot (one-man-)army, Ciel's your girl. People, on the other hand, and their racism and their illogical feelings like wanting revenge or going mad from stress make her brain hurt. In her actual area of expertise, she's dangerously bright. In any case, the fact that Ciel was allowed to focus on doing what she's good at is why this verse's Neo Arcadia has the nice things. _

_Well, that and Copy-X actually learning basic economics/resource management (energy crises do not work that way!) instead of pinning the blame on reploids and becoming genocidal and self-hating (this was his own species he wanted to eliminate, after all). My version of Copy-X here is taking all that naive intelligence, potential skill and determination it would have taken to pull that off and aiming it in the right direction.__ How much the reploid equivalent of genetic code affects their personalities is up in the air, but he was raised as a Lightbot and he seems to have picked up the family's Papa Wolf tendencies. Rock became a warbot to save his younger brothers, there's Blues, Dr. Light became LightAI, X fought for over a century to save his children and the world... "I don't want to hurt anyone, so please don't mess with my family? Because if you do, I'll have to repeatedly fuck your shit up, and I don't like violence," totally runs in the family. Except for the members of the family who totally don't have a problem with violence. At all. (Looking at you, Blues, especially the Megamix version.)_

_Part of the theme of this fic is that the next generation, the people that X and Zero have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to protect? They're actually pretty awesome. It's really sad that in canon, X and Zero work so hard and it never really accomplishes anything. All they can do is damage control, and given ZX, not to mention Legends, it's really up for debate whether or not it was worth it. That's why a lot of this fic is on the little people, the people who live or grew up in a world that's not perfect, not Elysium, but it isn't a nightmare, either, because of everything X and Zero did. I'm wanting to show, not tell, that it was totally worth it._


	23. Heaven or Hell

It was Ciel that asked the obvious question. "Where are we?"

"I'm sorry, my systems did something, and that teleport unit activated, but there aren't even any coordinates." Were they underground? In some sort of lost ancient complex? Or one of Weil's complexes?

My, there were a lot of elves around, wherever they were.

"It's human."

"_Human_."

Not baby elves, they weren't the right color. Yet somehow, Copy-X wasn't relieved.

"And _him_."

That didn't sound very good. At all.

"He's still got life energy. He could go back." Alarm mingled with anger in the elf's high-pitched voice.

"This is our place! You sacrificed us, and now you want to take this place? Use us again?"

"Drain them!"

"Kill them!"

The krak-boom that echoed off the twisting corridors and vanishing platforms of this space had an almost irritated sound to it. Like a whip being cracked, or a warning shot. No one was being beaten yet, but _they would be_.

Even though they'd been trying to kill her, Ciel and Copy-X both knew enough history to wince as the cyber-elves vanished, scattered, _ran for their lives_. The cyber-elves had been created by Weil: he was the cruel master they would fear, in the dark corners of their programming, the memory of a short-lived race.

When the energy pulse of the explosion cleared, the two of them saw a man in a white lab coat looking at them with a sort of irritation that made it obvious he was the one who had frightened the cyber-elves off. His arms were folded, an eyebrow raised and his look was one that didn't ask who they were, because it was clear that they were idiots, but just wondered which specific varieties of stupid he was being faced with now.

In ancient times, leather coats and trenchcoats had been associated with warriors and badasses. In 22XX, a white coat, with white coattails, was considered no less badass. The mavericks under Sigma had known to kill the scientists first, so that no one would be able to come up with a cure for the virus, and so to wear one was basically daring the mavericks to try to kill you. Gate had, but he'd lost everything and hadn't really cared if Sigma took him up on it. Weil and Arciel had, but they'd planned on winning.

Ciel had earned the right to wear one, but she hadn't quite had the arrogance to pack any. Especially not when she was on the run like this. It was like wearing blue armor, or wearing red and gray and using a beam saber. It was an arrogant declaration that it didn't matter what they threw at you, they weren't going to win. Wearing that while crossing the wastes: she might have drawn an arrow to herself with the text, "Capture this one."

The coat flared in non-existent wind, and it made both of them think of Zero's hair: it was also an arrogant badge of strength. Long hair could be grabbed, and so could coattails.

The sunglasses just contributed to that impression.

The man pushed back his spiky brown hair, and it made Ciel think of how she'd brushed her hair back so many times to get it out of the way until she'd grown it out just so she could tie it back. It was something she could relate to, a bit of normalcy in this insane place, so she relaxed a bit. Also, he'd saved them, so odds were he wasn't a bad guy.

"Is this yours?" he asked finally, fishing something out of a pocket.

The hazy ball of light tried to focus itself. Finally she spoke, muzzily: "Ciel?"

"Passy!"

"Ciel!"

"Thank you thank you thank you!"

The man looked at Copy-X over Ciel's head, telling him to hurry up and remove his human. Copy-X just blinked, surprised that he seemed disgruntled by this, because he'd somehow found Ciel's friend, and even if it was an utter coincidence he certainly deserved to be hugged thank-you. Or was Ciel hugging him tightly enough he couldn't breathe? He'd heard that could happen to humans.

Ciel resolved the stalemate by letting go on her own after a moment anyway. "How did you know?"

"Because annoying things come in families," the man said, withdrawing the hand that still held Passy from Ciel's grateful clutches, pulling it back, and throwing her into the distance.

Both of them stared after the ball of light as it vanished, crying out in shock, and then stared at the man. "Did you want to bring her back with you to the physical world, or did you want her to stay dead?"

"She's my friend!" Ciel informed him, angrily. She didn't abuse cyber-elves, no matter what those others had said.

"Then you can thank me later. Or rather, please don't." He brushed Ciel's dusty handprints off his coat, or at least tried to. Next, he looked at Copy-X, as though he was judging him according to some arcane criteria. Copy-X wasn't sure if the look of disapproval was because Copy-X didn't measure up to those standards, or he did and they weren't standards the man was fond of. "I have two questions: what idiot built you, and are you considering genocide already?"

"Excuse me?" the idiot more commonly known as Ciel asked, beginning to rethink her good impression of the guy. If he insulted Copy-X like that again…

"An attempt to exactly copy a Lightbot – although you clearly didn't get his memories, he looks too sensible for that – with _that _frequency." He rolled his eyes. Then cackled. "Those who don't remember history…"

The two of them looked at each other. Um, yeeeeah… "Where are we?" Ciel asked, to change the subject.

"Teleport space. Well, some call it cyberspace, but I saw it first, so I can call it what I like." He waved at the space around them proprietarily. "It's a representation in a form your puny minds can understand of the fundamental workings of reality. This is the ground state, the level what you call elf powers operate on, and so when they exercise them…"

"They use up the energy that allows them to maintain themselves at a higher frequency and are drawn here, unable to physically manifest again?"

He pointed at Ciel. "…Ah, so you're the one that built him. A little knowledge." He still seemed pleased.

"You aren't Weil, so who are you?" Ciel wondered. "Are you even from 21XX?"

"No, I invented teleportation in 20XX. Unfortunately, I got stuck here, and now Dr. Light gets the credit for it, just like everything else." He rolled his eyes again.

"Stuck here?" Copy-X pointed out the important part of that.

"Oh, there are ways out," the man said dismissively, "but I'm fond of not aging. The world's also gone to hell since I left." Well, without him around, what could you expect, his attitude seemed to say. "How _did _you manage to reproduce that frequency, anyway?" he asked, somewhat curious. This was the only scientific curiosity he'd run into in how long?

"You mean X's?"

"I mean… To give you a little context, Dr. Light incorporated an alien artifact into X. An alien artifact he was aware would affect X's developing mind. An alien who had been influenced by that energy at one point had decided to try to wipe out humanity. Just like the exact-down-to-personal-frequency duplicate of Rock constructed by that genius, Dr. Wily." And Copy-X was also a duplicate on that level. Or close to it. "So, since none of that alien technology survived into this era, how did you manage the frequency duplication?"

"…I just programmed it that way?"

"…You just programmed it that way." Who did she think she was kidding?

"Well, I used a bit of elf technology…"

He interrupted her. "Ah, sapient sacrifice." That explained it.

"No, just the technology. They are energy lifeforms, so… I still have the program." Ciel dug around in her bag.

Was this really the time for the reploid equivalent of baby pictures? Copy-X wondered, but the portal behind them had closed, and if they lost this man's interest he might leave, and then the elves would come back. Not to mention that he was their best shot at getting out of here.

"What is this?"

"Oh, it's my family cipher…"

"No it isn't, it's Standard Notation." He glared at her over the spread sheets. "How did a modern fool like you learn Standard Notation?"

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."

"Standard Notation. The programming language developed by…" He went silent. "It's what X's initial program was written with, although it wasn't developed by Dr. Light," he said finally. "The mother elf uses it as well, although obviously New Testament was _far _superior. Those incompetent fools were simply too afraid to tamper with it. I thought they'd simply developed the mother elf and it had copied the language during configuration, but if someone actually derived Standard Notation… Well, well, well." He smirked. "Obviously Weil doesn't know it."

"You're sure?" Copy-X wasn't.

Copy-X's comment was waved off dismissively. "Of course not. Even if he does, he can't know what it is or the true extent of what it can do. Otherwise, he would have already won." He pointed at Ciel. "Can you actually read it? What did you title his start program?"

"Exec-Metafalica, just like… Just like X's," she realized. If what he was saying was true, "There's no real difference between cyber elves and reploids, is there? So they'd come here after death?"

"…I am amazed that your own idiocy didn't kill you sooner. No, _not _just like X's, you imbecile. 'Execute a program that will create hope?' X was set to _self-configure: _he's a harmonics class. Or a 'Megaman' if you want to use that term for someone with the infinite potential system. Yes, Dr. Light hoped that he would decide to save the world instead of conquer it, but it's X's own fault he ended up like this. You programmed your little copy's fundamental soul with the directive of effectively altering the universe, you stupid girl. Why didn't you designate him a flip-class like your ancestress did all those poor elves, while you were at it." He'd noticed her name on the paper.

"Flips-class… Those are normal elves, they're set to release all their energy executing a single reality-altering program. The mother elf was non flips-class, even if her main purpose was to execute a single program," Exec_Purger, to rid the world of the virus. "But even if they aren't designated a flips-class, it's the same thing, isn't it? Without force metal, they can't recharge. But if reploids are elves… Or some reploids use this programming language… I need a pen." Was it possible for someone to alter reality without dying? Well, the mother elf had, obviously, and the baby elves, but all of that material had been used up, thank goodness. But, if a reploid could alter reality, and recharge from conventional power sources?

"…Here."

"Thanks. So, New Testament…"

"There's also an even more powerful language, but don't bother. That one only worked for robot masters."

"Robot masters could warp reality?"

"Two out of the three programming languages that _matter _were created by robot masters in the first place. One of the three languages is unusable: there's no accessible compiler." So it was Standard Notation, his New Testament, or they might as well use Basic, for all the good it would do them.

"Complier, right, you need a complier to convert a programming language into machine code or nanites: that would be why I didn't see the connection!"

"If you didn't see the connection, then why did you program your creation in it?"

"Because it was my family cipher, and… it felt right."

"Um, writing on the floor of the fundamental level of reality in a reality-warping programming language won't do anything, will it?" Copy-X thought he should ask, before they got too far along.

The two of them kept scribbling. "Don't be ridiculous: she's human and I know what I'm doing."

"Since I'm a human, it won't work, since I wasn't written in those programs? Or is it that only elves and reploids have complier access."

"Both. Also, humans are temporary random accumulations of building blocks: take away the blocks, and no more castle: take away the cells, the materials end up scattered all over and no more human. From the perspective of this place, you aren't a person any more than a cloud shaped like a duck is a real duck. When you die, there'll be nothing left but meat and memories, and soon enough even geniuses are forgotten. That's why teleportation will damage a human mind unless an elf sacrifices their own to carry the data, and why you will go insane if you stay here too long. You're not wired for fundamental truth: look at Weil."

His words made them too horrified to speak – Ciel could end up another Weil? This pleased him enough for him to continue. "He wanted to know what the world was really like, poor fool. He was human: he couldn't handle the truth."

Copy-X swallowed, even though it made no real difference. "The truth?" Well, someone had to play straight man.

"There is no justice, there's only…" The man looked around. "Damn, where did that boy go…" He shrugged. "Ah well."

"That boy?" Ciel wondered. "Do you mean Zero?"

"What?" Both of them stared at her. "Why would you think that?" the man asked, honestly surprised.

"You look like him," Ciel said.

"What?" Had his ears deceived him.

"Well, sort of. You look different, but so do the guardians, even though their faces are very similar to X's." Ciel had studied that. "It's the bone structure. He's very, well, idealized, and it's probably a coincidence, but you said boy, so… I mean, not that Zero's a little boy, but that made me think of family, and creations, and family resemblances. Not that…" She looked at Copy-X, and wished she'd named him. "Mine looks like me at all," but there was a reason for that.

He hooked at Copy-X, since she had, and shook his head. "You didn't even name him, did you. When he gets himself killed, no one will be able to call out to him." Then, he scowled. "_Idealized version… what kind of self-centered, arrogant fool would I have had to be… I could have done it myself if all I wanted was a perfect android version of_ _me_…. _Although she has no way of knowing she just accused me of programming myself a self-insert Gary Stu_." Although he could just tell her he was Zero's creator and see how much the little fool knew. Probably not enough to connect the dots and figure out who he was, given how carefully X had guarded Zero's good name. "_Well, it's not as though she won't die before much longer, so there's no need to kill the little fool for that." _Honestly, he might not have put it past his human self to do it that way, but if he recalled correctly, if Zero looked anything like him it was entirely accidental. She must be picking up on something else. Or it was simply another random moment of insight, an accidental act of genius. For someone who didn't know what the hell she was doing, she was absolutely brilliant, he had to admit. Well, a coin toss had no memory: it wasn't impossible for a little idiot to get lucky several times in a row.

To be fair, if he'd cared to be, _he _hadn't known what he was playing with, when he'd been human. None of them had.

"I have a name," Copy-X told her, even though it was still a lie. Then he asked the man, "How much longer does she have? She's answered your questions." So fair was fair.

"Don't worry: that cyber-elf of yours will be back before much longer, with reinforcements." They wouldn't give up an opportunity like this, and that would get them out of his hair for the first time in around two hundred years. Damn Lightbots, even knockoff half-Lightbots-at-best. "And, by the way, I'm not Zero's creator. Don't associate me with that…" There, even if they did know that Zero's creator was the great Dr. Wily, and also creator of the virus, that would put him in the clear. Let them think that he was disgusted by the virus and all the killing, not disgusted that his perfect creation had turned into that _Zero_. "You're the one who built something genocidal."

"He's not genocidal!"

"Not yet. Here, I'll show you." What she'd tampered with, what that energy did. What she'd gotten herself into. He pointed a pen at the knockoff Lightbot. "Method-Despedia… _Well now_."

Ciel leaned forward, frowning in concentration, not pouting. "What?" What were all those random letters and symbols doing in her greatest creation's program? Had she managed to copy the ability to evolve? "What's that?"

"You are a very rare little idiot indeed…" Creating something like this, and now this? Interesting. Interesting. He could do something with what this implied. "And _that _is New Testament, by the way."

And either X had let this slip by his watch somehow, he hadn't been able to destroy the thing or he had decided to let it live, even carrying this. Since rule one of his personal amended version of the Evil Overlord List was never act incautiously when dealing with an idealistic blue Lightbot? Although, X was now anything but idealistic.

This, though, was still an idealistic creature: he could see that in puzzled green eyes. It was all laid out before him, in this personality program. 'Soul,' he might have said, if he'd felt like being mystic about it.

Copy-Rock had been a priceless opportunity that he'd wasted. When he'd woken up to find that the virus had configured in and destroyed Dr. Light's first grandson, who had already become a hero by rescuing others of his design generation that had gone mad and started attacking people, it was too late to do anything but let the remnants of that shattered mind decay – it was only useful as a figurehead, to torture X and Light's AI. Again, what a waste.

Honestly, at this point, there were so many paths to victory that he would probably have to exert himself not to win. Or rather, fail to exert himself when the alternative…

It wasn't Weil's fault their names were so similar. Weil was Weil's actual name: Wily was the pseudonym, although chosen well before Weil was born. Four letters long, a W, I and L in common. At least it wasn't an anagram, like Ray Bluewit. The man was still a knockoff _him_. He'd even seized power using Zero's stolen body and a knockoff entity with a shadow of his true power. Except Dr. Wily'd never been that bad. Honestly, it was insufficient evil that was why he'd lost, if you came down to it. Even Zero had fallen prey to that, in the end. He liked to think that he'd been Chaotic Neutral, in his madness. Weil was pure Lawful Evil, although no one in this time would have any idea what he was talking about if he said that.

So many paths to victory: it was simply a matter of which he'd lower himself to take… "No, you little idiot, don't try to overwrite it: you need an elf to use Exec-Purger in the first place, and your knockoff has _X's frequency. _Remove this, and Weil will be able to find him in a heartbeat."

"He already found us," Ciel pointed out, scribbling with her borrowed pen.

"And do you want to walk right into his clutches the second you get out of here?"

"He has Zero, and Lark." So Weil coming to her would be faster.

"He has Zero." Honestly. After frustrating him so many times, for so long, it was almost as though the universe was trying to make up for it by going out of its way to force him to win the instant after he temporarily admitted that he barely cared to.

Even suddenly realizing who Ciel reminded him of couldn't ruin his mood, after that. One blue idealistic Lightbot and one blonde engineer: this future world was a world of knockoffs indeed. Even if they were creator and creation instead of brother and sister the way Rock and Roll had been.

"Weil can detect X's frequency?" the copy asked, alarmed.

"Oh, don't worry about him." If he hadn't been pretending, he might have added, 'it's too late for that,' or 'worry about yourselves.' Well, there'd be plenty of time for evil gloating later.

* * *

_Discworld reference: "THERE'S NO JUSTICE, THERE'S ONLY ME," according to Death._

_Aww, the mad scientists are bonding. Ciel's not used to meeting people smarter than she is, so Cielmuse is all, 'Can I take him home with me?' WilyAI's avatar is quite similar to the young!Wily in Gigamix vol. 2, which you should buy if you haven't already because it is awesome. _

_Another one of those chapters I agonized over, because technobabble and lots and lots of stuff being set up for future plot points that needs to work right or things won't make any sense later, but it's Friday, so no more time for tweaking. I have _Songs of Innocence _and _Tree of Thoth _chapters to work on. Oh, by the way: I decided to finish, or rather call a halt to _Garden_. So down to five incomplete fics, upping the odds I'll be able to update this most weeks until the end. Woot. _


	24. Rusted Machinae

_Technically, there should be a hymme extension in the name of Life W. R. S., but since it's not song magic per se in this universe and I didn't want to weigh this down with extra stuff that doesn't contribute to the plot of the fic, I'm leaving that out. There's already enough detail in here without potential red herrings to confuse the issue._

* * *

It took Lark a minute to realize that Ciel and her creation were gone. Even though she was sending as much power to Zero as she could, the system in the wings was designed to send out bursts of power, not a constant flow. It was when he fell that she looked around for help to find that they were already gone. She hoped that was a good thing – they didn't need Ciel in Weil's hands, and Ciel certainly didn't deserve _that _fate.

Zero had told them to get clear, but there were dozens of snakes attached to him now, with more arriving every second. Most Neo Arcadians thought that teleportation was just something that happened from terminal to terminal. Yes, it was more energy-efficient that way, and the only safe way for humans to teleport (because of the elves assigned to the teleportation network), but the snakes just appearing like this was proof Weil had the old technology, as if there was any doubt.

She'd been trained as a bodyguard, so it was obvious that the snakes were subduing him for capture, since they weren't trying to tear him apart. Zero was far too valuable to just kill – if Weil could use a baby elf to control him? A warrior like that? In addition to what it would do to the city's morale, even the guardians themselves wouldn't be any match for the legendary Zero.

She was a bodyguard now, and she'd been sent there to protect three people, as it turned out. If General Harpuia was watching this from above, then the generals wouldn't need her report. She could only hope that Ciel and her creation were fine, and if they weren't, then they had probably been taken to the same place Zero would be.

She didn't have a lot of time to think this through, so it was probably the training that let her figure out what she needed to do so quickly. It was the training that sent her diving towards Zero. There was nothing else she could do but hope they wouldn't just tear her apart, that she'd be taken with Zero and there might be an opportunity to do _something_.

It probably helped that self-preservation had never been very high on her priority list.

And she'd do more than just die for General Phantom. He'd trusted her with a mission like this, after… what had brought her to his attention? She wouldn't let him down.

She _wouldn't_.

The venom and the teleportation left her woozy, but apparently she'd guessed right, she realized, looking up into the face of a nightmare. The orange cone hat should have been ugly, weird, funny: who dressed like this? Even the reploids who didn't look human had designers who had taken some pride in their work. Weil should have been ridiculous.

If she was human, her knees would have been knocking together. It was still fear as much as the venom that kept her frozen, eyes wide. If it weren't for the restraints that had locked around her as soon as she arrived, she would have taken a step back.

And tumbled to the floor, most likely.

Alright, it was probably best to act like she was completely terrified into brainlessness and hope he ignored her until her head cleared.

It was a good thing she really wouldn't need to act all that much.

There was absolutely nothing fake about the way she shivered with relief when his eyes left her. "_That _is not my granddaughter," he told a kneeling reploid, who seemed used to Weil but no less terrified. If anything, familiarity didn't breed contempt, it bred knowledge of exactly how dangerous and cruel the man was.

There was a reason none of the reploids sealed to wait for Weil's return when the war started to turn against him had dared try to escape or do anything but follow their orders to the letter.

"But that," Weil added, glancing at Zero, "is the replacement body." So the reploid would be allowed to live despite the partial failure. "Leave me."

It bowed hurriedly and fled.

Weil looked at her again, and frowned. He wasn't looking at her face, but over her shoulders: her wings?

If Zero had recognized them, would Weil? If she intrigued him, he might let her live long enough to extract the information out of her. For the sake of her duty, this was probably a good thing, she tried to tell herself.

She glanced at Zero: no help there. He was shackled to a table far more securely than she was bound to this wall, and he was still unconscious. Maybe he was faking? No, that was just wistful thinking.

"Where," Weil said slowly, contemplatively, "did you get those wings?"

She swallowed: a lot of reploids were built to be able to send water down their throats to clean them out. It helped a lot if you were out in the desert, since sand got everywhere. "Lieutenant Lark of the Rekku Army, DBN-3924." Name, rank and serial number, even if she hated her serial number. It reminded her of things she didn't want to think about.

He chuckled. "I'll have someone interrogate you later." Right now, he had far more glorious fish to fry. An audience would let him judge what this would do to Neo Arcadia, how much their rank and file knew, he mused, stepping over to the control panel.

A door slid open and another reploid entered, carrying a body. It was taller than Zero's, but the face was the same, as was that long fall of hair. The reploid put it on another table, glanced at Weil to see if he had any more orders, and when Weil ignored it the reploid turned and left without even looking at her. "Wait." Weil realized that he did have an order. "Tear off those wings." He'd examine them to see if they really were the originals. If they were manufactured copies, then Neo Arcadia's technology had advanced in a direction he hadn't anticipated. If they were originals, then the female model mattered to someone, most likely Phantom, and he'd send her home in pieces.

Such a pity he'd only managed to capture Marino and Cinnamon had died a quick, relatively painless death. X was used to losing people, especially his children. Axl had been younger, and the loss of Red Alert, his adoptive father to the virus had been traumatic for him. Torturing this one would certainly remind Phantom of watching Axl suffer, unable to save Marino.

The reploid had to pay for defying him and incapacitating Omega, after all. Well, now he would snatch that temporary victory from Phantom's grasp, and the reploid would know this one was suffering because of him. He wondered if this one was his girlfriend? No, the universe wasn't that helpful and Phantom wasn't that stupid. She also looked underage even by the standards of Neo Arcadia's reploids, which almost all looked like short jailbait (like X, come to think of it), to his eyes, since he'd grown up with 21XX reploid designs.

The wings were welded to her back, it seemed. They'd been attached to Cinnamon's head in place of hair. The short screams that forced themselves past the small female model's lips when each of them was torn off were pleasing, but what really made him smile was attaching the cable to Zero. "I may have lost the Dark Elf, but she was weak. Worthless, just an inferior copy of the original. Just like you reploids are nothing compared to X." The download was already at seventy-six, seventy-seven percent: much faster than the first time Zero's personality had been moved out of his body for study, but this technology was actually compatible with him, unlike Arciel's best attempt at jury-rigging something. "And now I have the grand original. Case Zero, the source of the virus. It took the virus to defeat the virus: evil to defeat evil. The abilities of elves are just pale imitations of the abilities of the true Omega, Dr. Wily's ultimate creation. Greatest and last." He laughed. "He killed his own creator, and you consider him a hero? He pretends to fight for justice?" It made Weil laugh.

The download completed, and the entire structure around them began to hum, a frequency just on the edge of hearing, that was felt more than heard. "Hmm, something basic, to start with." He activated one of the programs Arciel had written for normal elves, the nurse elves: Exec _LifeWRS. The regular elf programs were nowhere near as powerful as the programs he'd managed to partially decode and copy from Zero's programming for his dark elves, but Weil had never bothered to locate a healing program.

Even if this was an inferior program, with access to Zero's power, it didn't matter.

The death of an ordinary elf wouldn't have replaced Omega's armor. The behemoth raised itself from the worktable it now dwarfed.

"Hmm. I could load Zero into that body, the way I did the dark elf. Then Omega would truly be invincible. But no." There was some risk Zero might get his body back, the host body would obey the entity it had been built as a vessel for. "Still, since I can revive you an infinite number of times, from here? Neo Arcadia won't be able to hold out forever. Go." The guardians could defeat it again, as the city watched. Then the city would see Omega get back up as though nothing had happened, and eventually Omega would evolve and the Guardians would tire. Tire and be torn apart.

Omega roared and vanished, teleporting away.

The loss of her wings was eating up her repair nanites, plugging the holes before she lost too much fluid, but Lark could still tell that was bad. What Weil had said about Zero was, well, it couldn't be true and Weil was evil. Everyone lied, but especially evil people. She knew better than to let it get to her. Especially since that was obviously what he wanted.

"Now… I'm not sure how to possess Harpuia from here, but two can play at that game." The plating under Lark's feet shook, and something flew past the window. "I do have to remember to thank X." To rub it in. "If Light Industries' network survived the Cataclysm, then of course Dr. Wily's server must have." The source of Zero's immortality, the server that translated elf programs into the frequencies that affected matter and altered reality, just as normal compilers translated words into ones and zeroes.

More of them flew by, sheets of metal – no, thicker, sections of something, with mechanisms and circuitry between the sections of hull.

Weil called up a schematic on the screen, replacing the readouts and folders of programs he'd had open. "Who would have thought that one of countless derelict old space stations, falling apart…" It was falling apart as Lark watched, pieces separating from the structure… To attach themselves elsewhere. So many panels, pitted grey metal on one side turning inwards, revealing sleek red and black on the other. "Was the stealth mode of Infel Phira?" Of course, that wasn't impressive enough. Neither the sound of the words themselves or Arciel's guesses at how they translated. "Behold: The power to destroy the world, and the gods themselves: Ragnarok!" Technically, this configuration was replekia mode, but the world would see what it could do soon enough. Ragnarok was certainly an appropriate name, if he did say so himself-"Urk."

The force of the charged shot sent him flying into the screen with a crash: the screen broke, but started to repair itself.

Just like Weil's body, as Zero's jumped down off the workbench, grabbed Lark's wings and cut her free – hadn't Zero given his beam saber to Ciel, Lark wondered, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Come on, we have to get you…" Even as he said that he winced, because Lark was charging forward. She didn't have her weapons, but she still had a reploid's strength, and this was Weil.

Zero sighed, shaking his head, blond hair sliding against his back and legs (which almost made him jump until he realized oh, of course that was what that sensations was), walked forward and pulled her off him. "He'll just regenerate. Come on, we need to get you out of here." Before guards showed up, like the one that was greeted with another charged shot followed by a saber to his neck when he ran in the door, Zero's dash boots letting him cover the distance in an instant.

"But…" Lark's protests were ignored when he grabbed her arm again, shot the window and pulled her through the hole into space.

Innocent out of the way _first_.

After they were gone, Weil got to his feet. The dead reploid barely merited a contemptuous glance.

He almost glared out the window, at the light of the stars.

What had just happened?

And why wasn't a wound on his 'chest' healing?

To top it all off, his fingers were twitching again.

* * *

"Excuse me?" she said softly.

"I don't think they heard you," Copy-X said after a few seconds when the other two kept scribbling. She had been very quiet. "Ciel? And…" The man hadn't introduced himself, but then neither had Copy-X.

"What?" the scientist looked up, annoyed. "Oh. You. What is it?"

The pale skinned and haired female model in the black-purple armor looked down at her feet.

"Well, speak up." He had no time for her 'I'm not worthy/I'm only a burden' nonsense. "You _already _interrupted us, so don't keep me in suspense."

"You saved him earlier, but he left again, and… It's been too long." She was worried, and her arms were wrapped around herself as though she was trying to make herself as small as possible, anticipating anger.

The man grumbled, throwing his pen down on the ground in irritation. "If he can't even babysit right," what good was he? He stood up. "Your ride will be here before long," he told the two of them. "I need to do something about this." He didn't bother to say goodbye, instead grabbing the female model by the long white hair that reminded Ciel of Zero's and vanishing.

The female model looked at them apologetically, in the second between when it was clear she was going to be dragged off and vanishing.


	25. Light of the Sacred Flame

_Using 'Falcon' instead of Faucon, like Lark for Alouette. Conveys the meaning better. Also the reference._

_Tweaked lines from Exec_Flip_Metamorphose._

* * *

Rouge frowned. "General…"

"What, again?" Fefnir sighed, turning around to look at the screen that displayed a certain recently-created crater a little over a kilometer away from the city's edge. He shrugged, then turned away, looking only slightly peeved. "Hit 'im again," he ordered, turning back to his console.

"Yes, sir." Her headset conveyed the orders to the gunnery crews without her having to speak aloud. The command and control center was loud enough as it was.

Colbor cleared his throat. While sometimes that was necessary for reploids, when they were caught in sandstorms, here it was very clearly meant to communicate that in General Phantom's absence, the acting operations head of the Zan'ei was obligated to comment on Fefnir's tendency to apply massive amounts of firepower. And mock him when that firepower failed to do anything useful, but to mock one of the Guardians?

Fefnir waved off his careful non-objection. "Yeah, yeah, he'll just pick himself up again, but at least it's still buying us a few minutes."

"Scans show target destroyed," Rouge reported again, even before the smoke cleared.

The crater was now a little deeper, and Omega's pieces were once again scattered all over it.

"Good work," Fefnir told her. It made him feel a little warm, happy glow of pride in his men (and Harpuia's female models, in Spotter Commander Rouge's case), that she could refer to Omega as just 'the target.'

Of course, the words 'target destroyed' were always music to his ears.

Oh, they'd been dismayed enough when Weil's monster appeared, roaring. Parents frightened their children with Omega. Older models told stories to younger ones, too. Weil would probably be disappointed, Fefnir thought, to find out that he wasn't the boogeyman, Omega was. What parent would talk to their kid about Weil, and what made him such a monster? Omega was a big, scary, stomp on you and grind you into the dust scary monster. So, obviously, how X and Zero had kicked its ass made a great story to tell kids. Like the dragon Fefnir was sort of named after.

Omega had roared, and everyone here had tried not to look frightened, but Fefnir could roar too, and roar _orders, _unlike the mostly-brainless behemoth.

The first time, they'd been relieved and started to celebrate, and Fefnir had to roar at them again to get back to work and not to get their hopes up. A little thing like that wasn't going to keep down Omega for long, they knew Weil had elf technology, even if they didn't know that wasn't the half of it when it came to Omega. Fefnir knew even he probably didn't even know a third of what was up with Omega, and right now he wished he'd done a little more prying, back then. Would be handy to know what he was dealing with, when X wasn't around and he was the one stuck coming up with the plans.

He'd told them to blow Omega up again the first time he'd pieced himself together, and after the third time he'd stopped hearing gasps of dismay.

It had been a couple hours now, and it seemed that the novelty of blowing the God of Destruction to hell had started to wear off for the command staff. Fefnir knew he was getting bored with it. Pity Phantom's trick, whatever it was, hadn't kept Omega down forever, but Omega had the infinite potential system, so what could you do? Fefnir could have thermonuked him, if he'd felt like wasting the hydrogen or fissionables, and rendered Omega down to his molecules instead of scattered, melted shards, but Omega'd still have figured out how to pull himself together.

Anyway, "Of course we can't keep this up forever, and I know that." Bombs ran out, even if they actually had stockpiles now. Harpuia had hit him from orbit a few times, but Omega had already evolved an immunity to lightning, it seemed, so they'd had to start using conventional munitions again. "I just want you guys to keep him down long enough for me to finish going over these orders and operations plans." He sighed, rolling his eyes. "Fight of the century on our doorstep and I'm doing _paperwork_." Goddammit, where were his siblings when he needed them? This crap was what Harpuia was for.

"…General Fefnir?"

"What?" Couldn't Rouge see he was trying to concentrate?

"Sir… do you mean you're going to fight that thing alone?"

"I'll take some elves with me," although that was as good as going alone, if he had anything to say about it. Even though they'd probably have to use elves, and a ton of them, to disable Omega. Supposedly he'd been fried the last time when Zero and X ripped Aurora out of him, but obviously that wouldn't work now, not when he didn't have the Dark Elf in there to be freed. If he did, it wouldn't be this easy to make the thing go boom with conventional weapons. "Falcon, you'll be in command until someone gets," their ass, "back here."

"Sir," Commander Falcon nodded, acknowledging the instruction. And honor. Harpuia's second-in-command was fairly young, but he had distinguished himself in an attack on a caravan a few years ago enough to justify the expense of upgrading him into a flight-capable body, and he'd risen through the ranks fast after that. You had to respect someone who had taken down heavily-armored mechanaloids with his bare hands after his energy pistol had jammed. "Would a sniper detachment be acceptable?"

"Not if they come close enough a human could spot them. I don't want to have to worry about barbequeing my own troops." At least Falcon hadn't suggested he needed guards or meat shields, but then he dealt with Harpuia, who made it very clear that he did _not _need help from his troops, and if he did he would order them to provide it. To be fair, it was mostly because he didn't want heroic people putting themselves in danger when he did something that would have been fairly suicidal for someone without Harpuia's decades of combat experience and advanced systems. Fefnir sometimes had the same problem. "Has Judge Biblio managed to dig up that file on Omega's specs and the possible containment measures he and Master X worked out?" In case (for when) Weil and Omega returned.

"Yes, he and Dr. Cerveau are going over it now." Joan reported.

"Let me know when they've got something workable." Fefnir hit send on the two windows he'd been switching off between and stood up. "Commander Falcon, you're in command as of now. I've sent you my orders."

"Sir." The Rekku officer wasn't the only one to salute as he left the room, headed for the nearest teleport pad.

All of them used the Jin'en's salute.

"General Fefnir? We're ready," one of the elves that was waiting for him at the teleporter told him.

"Good. I want all of you to stay out of his reach. _Don't _try swooping in front of his face to distract him." That was one of the moves the elves in the armies practiced: besides scouting, there were lots of things they could do that didn't mean certain death. And he especially made sure the ones in his army knew that. "Omega can grab you and use your power for himself. The last thing any of us needs is for him to be temporarily invincible." Or who knew what else. He looked at each of them directly as he told them that. Just because they knew they could be called upon to give their lives someday didn't mean they should throw them away cheaply. "Anyone who doesn't make it count will have their name stricken from the honor roll, got me? And if at least half of you aren't alive at the end of the day, you're _all _getting taken off unless it was absolutely unavoidable. Don't try to tell me you didn't volunteer for this so you could go out in a blaze of glory against the god-damn God of Destruction." Because he hadn't been built yesterday.

Cyber-elves, these ones, didn't live all that long, most of the time. Especially not military models. Most reploids didn't really think about how they would die, but it was almost every day that a cyber-elf wondered if this was the situation where they should use their power.

"…Yes, sir." The elected leader of this group of cyber-elves seemed downcast.

"…If you die today, you'll die for a good cause," he told her, since he didn't want to burst their bubble, "but that cause is protecting the people of Neo Arcadia and saving their lives. Keeping people alive is the whole _point_. If you forget that…" then there wasn't any point. If they thought their lives were worthless, then how precious was something of you spent zero Zenny on it? Crystals, these days. "If you forget that, then I've failed." Oh, it was tempting to think of them as floating appliances. Easier that way, on people who got seriously injured. On people with important, urgent projects, like tower maintenance. They might not be as smart as the first generation, thinking took energy, but they weren't stupid. They were people, even if they weren't as powerful as the originals, as Aurora and the dark elves. "As a Guardian." As Aurora's friend.

Because these little floaty things were based on her, just like all reploids were based on his father. And they'd been building reploids knowing they were almost certainly going to end up dead, or worse, during the Maverick Wars.

Sometimes, all you could do was make it count, and hope that you'd made enough difference that someday, people would have _options_. Wouldn't have to die so young and with so few choices made.

"We won't let you down, sir."

"Better not," he growled, looking at each of them, making eye contact like they were people (even if he couldn't make out their eyes on the glow), and triggered the teleport.

It made him grin, to see that he'd landed on one of those fragments of white armor. He might have gone on his way to step on a few more (like the game of avoiding stepping on cracks, although in this case he'd love the chance to break Weil's back) as he headed closer to the place Omega'd been standing, where he was most likely to pull himself together. Or be pulled together, if Weil was sending elves. Fefnir's could counter their efforts if he did, as long as they weren't baby elves.

As much as he liked Sodom and Gomorrah, he was going to need bigger guns for this.

Unlike Harpuia and Phantom, he wasn't built with a focus on agility, and unlike Leviathan he didn't have the luxury of dodging all over the damn place. He used heavy cannons, and that meant he needed secure footing so recoil didn't mess up his aim. Obviously that would put him at a disadvantage: he'd take a lot of hits, he couldn't avoid that, so he needed to reduce the damage from those hits, which meant armor, which would slow him down more.

Also, to do damage to Omega faster than Omega could hurt him, _bigger guns_.

His father had teleported armors to himself on the battlefield. He'd done one better for them.

_Passcode: "The strength of my burning passion shall compel the divine mission!"_

_Exec_Metamorphose – Fefnir extracting: Armed Phenomenon Mode_

It was always disconcerting, to have most of his body teleported out from around him and then his braincase and other important bits installed into his other body as it appeared around him…

"_Together, we shall wear the necklace of steel and protect all from the beasts possessed by insanity." _

_Exec_withMethod_Metamorphose - Fefnir and Elpis extracting: Divine Phenomenon Mode_

His armed phenomenon form dissolved into stuff that looked vaguely like electronic code or modeling, like when Axl had done his thing, only with weird symbols mixed in instead of pure lines and shapes. Judging from his optics, which were still intact, he was being lifted several meters higher off the ground.

Of course, he barely noticed that, not next to, "_Aurora_?"

"_I shall wear these chains so that we may protect all from the beasts possessed by hatred_…" She was still coding this, adjusting his new form, but she still sent him a flash of apology, that she would respond but she couldn't, not until this was finished, or else he'd end up with something that wasn't good enough.

There was so much he wanted to say to her. And ask her. Like where the hell she'd been. And what the hell she was thinking, showing up on a battlefield with Omega, after what he'd done to and with her last time.

He would have yelled at her to go away right the hell now, except if she just dumped him mid-edit like this he'd be scrap metal, and he knew she wouldn't do that to him. Even if his death would be much, _much _better than her getting caught by Omega again. Both for the war and because damn it, hadn't she suffered enough?

He hadn't seen much of her after Weil took her – she'd disappeared as far as he knew after Zero had used her to cure the virus a second time, ending the Second Elf War. Weil's war. He hadn't asked X what he'd done with her, because it was safer for everyone that way.

"_Through me courses the power of the gods, protecting those who are precious – I will this, never forgetting that love! From the ends of the universe I summon and command the power and understanding to protect all from the beasts possessed by madness!_"

Alright.

Well, he'd been modeled after a dragon from the start. Now, instead of two cannons, he had two more fire-breathing heads. Wings, that wouldn't actually keep him in the air without a little tweaking of physics that Aurora's program had already done – it didn't matter what the laws of physics said, when the Mother Elf decreed otherwise.

He might have wondered at the love part if he hadn't known that what Aurora did was half willpower. And it took emotion for people to throw themselves at the universe and _demand _that it bend to their will. Anger, hatred, grief… elves would sacrifice themselves, would do things for lots of reasons, just like anyone else. But the strongest emotion there was? The one that would make people keep going in the face of impossible odds, or even when they _knew _it was impossible, that it just didn't work that way, that the world just wasn't a place that would let them save everyone and have their dreams?

He'd known his father. He'd seen what made him force himself to keep going, just for the sake of a single precious life, just so that someone would have _tried _to save them, even when it was hopeless.

He'd known X. He'd survived the Massacre of Dominica because X _hadn't _been able to leave him there, even though he'd shouted at him to, knowing the only reason his com wasn't jammed was that Weil had wanted X to come. To die.

So he knew the power of love had nothing to do with human hormonal fooling around. It was _the _reason to fight.

So Aurora invoking it… explained why this form was so powerful (Damn, he felt like Godzilla), and it was flattering that she still remembered him, still could care about him even though he'd epically failed at protecting her, but they'd both changed. It had been so long.

There was no way she could remember his stupid crush, that stupid promise to protect her she'd been right to laugh like hell at him for (she should have been untouchable, figuratively as well as literally). Just… They'd both been completely different people, back then.

And since it was human knights that slew dragons to rescue princesses, it was definitely a bad omen to think of it that way. "_Get out of here!" _

"_Phantom's still sabotaging Omega to distract his infinite potential system as much as he can. I know where X is, but he's busy. …And it's good to see you." _

"_Good to see you too, but seriously, Aurora, get the hell…" _All of a sudden, instead of gradually drawing itself together Omega's body was suddenly intact. "…_Never mind."_ Too late. If she left his body, it would be easier for Omega to grab her. "_Stay here_." In this body, behind several layers of very nice alloy.

Oh, Omega wanted to roar in his face? Two could play at that game.

And now Fefnir roared _fire_.

"_It won't stay that easy_," Aurora cautioned him – she knew how Omega 's systems worked, he'd already be adapting to a new threat, especially one that had softened Omega's armor up enough Fefnir had just lunged forward and easily clawed his face off, tackling him to the ground in the process,

"_Good, because this is fucking embarrassing,"_ Fefnir thought on her as he bit Omega's arms with his two new sets of teeth and _pulled._ They hadn't had the resources for targeted massive overkill bombardments like this during the second elf war, true, and even if they had Weil would have ordered Omega to get out of there, used elves, or sent a program to speed up his evolution or something else to render Fefnir's favorite tactic and X's preferred one useless. Still, it had been almost impossible for X to injure Omega and make it stick for more than a second, back then. So, even though he really didn't want to complain about things being easy for once, it made him a little embarrassed on his father's behalf that Fefnir was making it look so easy at the moment.

Now that Omega didn't have the dark elf and Fefnir did.

Payback was a bitch, but revenge was sweet and titaniummy.

Once he peeled Omega like a grapefruit and rendered the insides extra crispy before anyone could get a good look at them, he'd get to do it _all over again_.

Maybe getting stuck watching Neo Arcadia hadn't been such a bad deal after all.

* * *

_Kaiju FTW. I could swear there's an actual dragon kaiju with wings and three heads (but sadly not red), but I can't remember the name off the top of my head._


	26. Echoing Myriad Ways

"I found them!"

Copy-X spun around when he heard that, to find himself face to face with himself.

Or herself.

Was this what he would look like if he agreed with Leviathan and decided that who 'he' was should be a female model?

Chestnut hair, topped with a beret. Red and blue armor. A beam saber's hilt at her hip. A sweet but slightly sheepish smile. She'd recognized that he was startled by her appearance. "Right, I was a copy of X too."

"Was?" he asked her. She was glowing. Like an elf. Like a ghost?

"My names… Name and rank was Colonel Iris." She lowered her head, cheeks coloring with embarrassment as well as regret. "We couldn't… I couldn't even manage to be him long enough to be activated. How did you manage it?"

He blinked at her. "Manage what?"

"To resolve the contradiction," she explained, with barely-hidden eagerness. "It's absolutely wrong to kill people, no matter what. But it's also absolutely wrong to just stand by and let other people be killed. I… I couldn't manage it. To live like that. I tried to be two of me, so each of me could uphold one half, but the part of me that tried not to hurt anyone tried to kill someone who didn't deserve it at all, and the part of me that fought to protect people let so many people be killed out of foolish pride."

"Phantom asked me something like that," Copy-X realized. He hadn't thought of it in those words, but he _knew _this logical contradiction somehow, in his copied core programming. "I said that if Ciel became maverick, she wouldn't want to hurt anyone, so… to save her… But that was when I was young and stupid. That wasn't the right answer."

"But you haven't gone mad, so you must have come up with one." A better way to live in accordance with what was _right _than having two of her, both being half-wrong. Those two wrongs hadn't let her do it right, not at all.

"What kind of answer? I mean, the only right thing to do is to not hurt anyone _and _save everyone, because it's wrong for people to suffer. Sometimes it's not possible to do that, the Guardians made sure I knew that, but who to sacrifice isn't something that should be decided in advance. Just sacrificing Ciel in some kind of hypothetical, without asking first if there were ways to save her, I mean we have elf technology now, even though that would just be sacrificing someone else, and… You can't just have a policy of who to sacrifice without trying to find out what's going on and find another way. That's choosing to let people die, isn't it? Deciding they aren't worth as much instead of trying to save them? And that's… wrong. Even if I can't save everyone, even if I can't do everything right, and even X couldn't, I have to try."

"Trying…" Instead of choosing who to give up on?

"Both of those things are wrong, so it's wrong to say that either of them is right. It's not right to kill people, and it's not right to let people be killed. If I decided to kill people and didn't try to save them, that would absolutely be wrong. But if I let a criminal go free, and people died, that would also be wrong. So… I try to figure out what the best thing I can do is. The least wrong thing, I guess. And I have everyone to help me, and ask if I'm not sure what the right way to handle it is. Or…" He clearly wasn't saying it right at all. "I think you were trying to make that choice in advance, find an answer and there isn't one that's always right. I guess the only right way to resolve that situation is to keep it from happening in the first place. Make the world a place where no one has to die. But that's probably impossible, everyone says, so if there are two wrong answers and the only right answer isn't the answer either, then… Or no, not making a choice is also wrong, because that's sitting back and letting people be killed, isn't it?" Wow, he understood how it had made her head hurt. "So it's not a multiple choice problem, but a min/max problem? Try to figure out the strategy that saves the largest possible number of people? But… No, this isn't something that should be treated like it's _theory_, not when it's _people_. I'd have to know exactly what was going on before I tried to figure out how to handle something. And that's no help at all, is it?" He looked at her apologetically.

"No." She shook her head. "It isn't, and that's why it is. I wanted an easy answer. I wanted the world to be simple." Black and white, honor and dishonor. Us and them. "I thought I could solve a problem that X couldn't, could he? And if I couldn't, I was a failure." And they had refused to be a failure. "I didn't do the right thing, any of me, but there wasn't a right thing to do. I hesitated, I refused to make a choice, I just let the flow carry me along." Repliforce's orders, the Hunters' orders. "Until I couldn't take it any more." Again. "I wanted… someone to give me an answer. I wanted to blame it on humanity, believe that Elysium would be a place where everything was simple, without them. When it was the mavericks that were causing all of it, and they were the ones that said it was humanity's fault when they didn't do anything. It was General, all of it: he betrayed the world and dealt with Sigma so we could escape the wars. They were right to kill all of us. We were traitors. They were right and we-I was wrong." She tried to smile, thought the tears, and Copy-X didn't know who that reminded him of. "When you see Zero, tell him… No. I should tell him myself."

"Tell Zero what?" Ciel asked, mystified. She realized a second later that she'd asked that at the same time as someone else. "Passy?" Was that her?

"That…" jerk, just throwing her like that. "Anyway, I wound up in the middle of a bunch of people that knew Zero! So they said they'd help me look for you."

* * *

"What is that?" Ciel asked, looking ahead of them with an expression that might have been shocked, or even very, very worried if Ciel didn't default to curiosity in those situations.

Alia and Signas looked at each other. "That?" Alia asked her.

"The… cloud. It looks like a thunderstorm." Maybe they weren't commenting on it because it was normal, wasn't a problem? Ciel hoped it was, because that sort of chaos, here?

"You can… does it have a color?" Alia looked like she was checking something.

"Black-purple." Not dark people, no. "I mean, it's black in some parts and purple in others. The cloud's black and the lightning, energy flashes are purple… Except it's _all _energy flash, so why am I… There are some people that can see ultraviolet light, but I'm not one of them." Or so she'd thought.

Copy-X shook his head. "That's definitely not ultraviolet." He could see ultraviolet just as well as infrared, although X's systems ignored it by default, in order to perceive the world the way humans did.

Alia and Signas looked at each other again. "Maybe it's because he's a direct copy?" the commander suggested.

Alia nodded. "X would have been able to see this." Given the data she'd collected as his spotter, she was certain of it. "That's Zero's cyber-elf form. Normally, it's impossible for reploids to detect it." Like the virus: it could be all through their systems and they wouldn't know until it was too late. "Or conventional equipment." Conventional virus detectors, for example. No, forget them: if Zero hadn't been heavily shielded almost _any _device that detected energy readings would have noticed that there was a power output equivalent to several nukes going off at once _in __their __base._And that was when Zero had been in stealth mode, barely calling up a fraction of his true power. In fact, most of that energy had been spent altering reality to hide the presence of that much energy. Zero's effort to stay normal, stay on their side instead of doing what he had been built for. "To locate him, we're following… someone's signal. He can track it."

A small light, dwarfed by the bulk next to it to Ciel's eyes and Copy-X's, resolved itself into a reploid when some of the other lights approached it. The reploid forms of all the cyber-elves looked a little odd to the two of them, not streamlined the way they were used to, so not even Ciel noticed that there was sort of a rough, unfinished feel to this one's design. At least he was 'normal-sized,' or close enough: about the same height as X and closely based on his design, clearly, which meant he was tall by Neo Arcadian civilian standards, but he wouldn't have stood out, walking down a city street.

"Brother," Signas said, nodding.

The other nodded as well, but grimaced, skipping the pleasantries to report, tapping the hilt of an unactivated beam saber against his other green-armored arm as he thought. "No luck, I'm afraid. Elpis completely purged that account from the system," a hint of remembered triumph there, "but that means I can't use it to try to interfere, either. I tried setting up a fake account again, but it's not buying it this time." That bastard had upgraded the security at some point after Zero woke up. "No one's getting in unless they're a valid registered user. Not even the baby elves."

"…He blocked the baby elves?" Alia was shocked.

That should have been good news, but it just made this reploid scowl, clearly worried as he looked at the two newcomers. "If _he__'__s_ involving himself…" Hmm? "What's that? In your pocket. The energy source."

He'd seen that? Right, Ciel realized, these were cyber-elves, after all. "This?"

"How did you get that beam saber?" His expression was somewhere between puzzled, worried and maybe, just maybe, a little hopeful.

"Zero gave it to me, in case it would help." Ciel looked at the one in the reploid's hand. That couldn't be a real beam saber, any more than he was wearing real armor: the forms the cyber-elves were taking were just manifestations of how they had perceived themselves when they were alive. It looked just like Zero's, though, and she was sure Zero's was a custom model. The casing had been cut, not cast, for one thing. "Are you the one who gave it to him?"

He hesitated, before saying, "Not exactly. It was mine, but the person who gave it to him wasn't me. Not exactly. They were pretending to be me. So they said exactly what I would have said." Exactly what Zero had needed to hear, to stay functioning. To not try to take his own life, for the people he'd murdered.

Exactly. It was Copy-X that put it together, not Ciel. Phantom had said that what made mavericks so effective, to the point that newtype infiltrators had been absolutely useless by comparison, was that they had all the memories of the person they used to be. They remembered who they had been, what they had felt, just perceived through the lens of the virus.

After the Maverick Hunter organization had spent decades learning to pick up the subtlest of signs that people weren't themselves, when newtypes, who could copy someone's appearance but not someone's mind, had tried to fool Maverick Hunters during 'that idiot Lumine's' rebellion, none of them had lasted longer than a day before giving themselves away.

Copy-X remembered what Zero had said, overlooking Area Zero. The person who had inspired Zero, whose own heroism had inspired so many, _had __already __been __taken __by __the __virus_ when he gave Zero the legendary weapon Zero had used to fight the virus. _That _was how well mavericks had been able to imitate the people they had been.

How could _anyone _trust anyone else, in a world like that?

And this reploid was smiling, as though that was nothing, in a way Copy-X had sometimes seen on people who had fought in the Elf Wars. Leviathan wore it a lot. 'I'm smiling because otherwise I'd have to cry, scream, or laugh hysterically.' Someone who had seen enough horror that they had to laugh at it, had to think that it was ridiculous, because if it _wasn__'__t _ridiculous, if things like that, which shouldn't happen in a sane universe, really were the way of the world… He smiled like it was nothing, because things like that shouldn't be.

He wouldn't let them be, any more than Leviathan would.

"Do you mind?" Ciel had already asked him as Copy-X thought. "He lost his memories, so… He remembers that the person who gave it to him was important to him, though," she hastened to explain that Zero wasn't throwing away a memento because he didn't care.

"No, I don't mind." Of course not. "Protecting people is what that saber is meant to be used for." The reason his creator and the person he was based on had made it for him, for his birthday. It was supposed to be a light saber, but he'd insisted that they call it something else because it didn't work the way light sabers worked. It had still been incredibly cool, though, and useful. He'd always worried about shooting irregulars, because if all the safety features were working right they wouldn't have gone irregular in the first place. Poor surge protection had scrambled a lot of newbuilts, and poor surge protection and a plasma shot in the right, or wrong place could have killed them when it would only have wounded a healthy reploid. Or singed X. "He gave it to a human." This smile was a happy one, proud and nostalgic. "Would you do something for me?"

"What?" it wasn't Ciel that asked, but the nurse Elf that had turned into a medical reploid.

Ciel's response had been, "Sure."

"Tell him that I never regretted trying to save his life instead of ordering the area bombed after everyone was clear. If I hadn't, he wouldn't have joined the hunters, he wouldn't have saved X all those times, protected humanity. And my creator." Reploid researchers had been _targets_, after all. "If I hadn't gone that day, if Zero didn't _deserve_ to be helped, just like everyone else… So, when he gets his memories back, if he starts going silent and thinking that he isn't worth it again, ask X have a word with him for me, alright?" He grinned.

"Were you a Guardian?" Copy-X blurted out. No, they would have mentioned if there was another of them, and this had happened long, _long _before they were built, and yet, "You remind me of them." Phantom and Harpuia. A bit of Fefnir. And recommending that someone be attacked, even with words, in order to make them feel better? That was Leviathan. Not that he'd said, 'ask X to kick his ass for me,' but the sentiment was there.

He shrugged. "I was modeled after X, and he worked on me, but… The four of them should have that title, not me. I… in the end, I never managed to protect anyone. I wanted to save people, once. I set out to be a hero, but everyone I managed to save died before the third war started." The ones who had joined the hunters had all been killed or gone maverick in the first.

"Zero," Signas reminded him.

"He died in the second war." He shook his head. "Rock, me, Elpis… all of the Second Built are heroes except me and Lumine." And Lumine had worn his face, just like the virus. "Well, you didn't bring them here to listen to me. What's the plan?"

"We have enough accumulated energy to get the two of them back to the real world. If we insert them into Ragnarok, and there's enough to send at least a few of us as elves with them, they might be able to extract Zero's cyber elf from the system," Alia told him.

"But none of you individually have that much energy, and using energy from multiple reploids is something only the virus' programming can do." He tapped his hilt against his arm again, thinking. "I don't know. Infel Phira is blocked to everyone but registered users and ex-mavericks don't count anymore. Elpis and X installed an emulator into Ar Tonelico in order to transfer the cured mavericks back to the original system when they cured them, but X just self-destructed almost all of it except the Implanta terraforming sub-system, from what I hear. Without an emulator Implanta won't be compatible with the function we need."

"Implanta is locked down tight," another elf reported, turning into a young looking female model with very odd 'hair.' Or were those ears? Receptors of some sort, anyway? "It's still running programs from cyber-elves, but I can't get anything out of it."

"Thank you, Palette." Signas came to a decision: "An emulator would be a translator function, correct? That would let Implanta treat the program as though it's only being run by one reploid, or cyber-elf."

"And only one of us knows enough about Infel Phira's programming language to translate like that."

"If we can focus our power into you…" Alia might be the scientist, but Signas had been built for information analysis, after all.

"Clever, little brother, but it doesn't work that way. Ar Tonelico uses the strength of the emotion as a check to confirm whether or not it should run the program. The server supplies most of the energy, but the reploid has to supply the _will_ to shape and focus it. Infel Phira gathers the strength of countless broken wills, until they add up to more power than any ordinary reploid or elf could provide." It programmed them into single-minded mad obsession and threw thousands of _that _at the universe, like a shotgun blast instead of a charged shot. "The emulation program doesn't just translate the coding, it had to serve as a vessel for everyone's wills. But reploids were designed, like X, to only feel our own emotions, follow our own wills. It was a dummy account, a shell of a reploid with no will of its own." He smiled at them, with a trace of sadness there. Then closed his eyes. "Wee ye ra exec hymme LINKER chs SolFatele enter X."

When the light dimmed enough they could make out details, what stood there looked like a small sapling, with leaves the soft green of that armor.

When Copy-X turned to ask Ciel what had happened, he saw that she had already sat down on the ground with her borrowed pen. "Met… No, it would be _Exec__Despedia, right…"

"Can I see that? Palette, get over here," Alia ordered the junior spotter, sitting down next to Ciel. "This looks like the encryption on X's status readouts." The nonsense they kept getting when they tried to analyze him, just symbols instead of alloy components and data on internal components.

"Do you know his username?" Ciel asked her. "This guy I met showed me a program that would let you call up information on people if you had their registered names."

Alia looked up at the commander.

"That was my oldest brother. The _real_Sigma." Signas gave them a quelling look: no one had better make anything of it.

"No, I mean his username," Ciel repeated herself as Copy-X tried to process this. "Let me try deriving it. Exec_Despedia Sigma_Fehu_X_ArTonelico." Symbols failed to appear, and her shoulders slumped. "Was he directly derived from anyone?"

"X." Signas was surprised she didn't know this: wasn't she a reploid researcher. "He was the first reploid."

Ciel fiddled with the pen for a second before starting to scribble again. "So maybe there was a problem and he wasn't properly registered? But he has to be registered now. Sigma_ArTonelico?" No luck. "Sigma… No, he said he wasn't registered with any other server anymore, so that can't be it. Except, if this is a slaved server… Sigma_Fehu_X_SolFatele?" No…

"Wasn't he created by Dr. Cain?" Copy-X asked.

She shook her head. "That shouldn't have anything to do with it. It has to do with quasi-DNA… Except this is a registry so… Sigma_Fehu_Cain_ArTonelico."

That made a circle of glowing symbols appear around the tree.

"Redirect… Sigma_Fehu_Cain_SolFatele… _There _we go." Ciel nodded as row after row of scrolling symbols appeared. "I wonder if it was X that listed him as Dr. Cain's? Or he thought of himself as Cain's creation enough that it overrode the genetic relationship in his self-image?"

"He had himself upgraded for combat after our creator had already started treatment for... that." Cancer. Signas had been built after all of Dr. Cain's hair had fallen out. After Sigma had joined the hunters. It had surprised him to see old photos, old sketches, and realize that of course Sigma wouldn't have been built bald. Not when he was a demonstration model, the first reploid. It would have been counterproductive for him to be intimidating, like X himself. It had surprised Signas, when the two of them were reunited in this place, in this strange afterlife, that Sigma wore the body he'd been built with, instead of the design Signas had always associated with him. Of course, the smaller body was the one Sigma had worn for most of _his_ life.

The hunters had still been a half-volunteer unit that let people name their units whatever sounded cool (names from random mythology instead of numbers, or a proper organizational structure) when Zero woke up. That disorganization was part of what had let him slaughter them so easy, the inquiry afterwards had found. Afterwards, Sigma had organized the hunters into a more disciplined unit, one that took orders unquestioningly... But that hadn't been the real Sigma.

Signas had been built for information analysis and detective work. Not just to find out who had built Zero, but that was certainly part of it. Even though he'd been built before the first maverick war, he'd still never met his real brother until after they were both dead. They'd... tried, because that was what Dr. Cain would have wanted, but Sigma didn't want to talk about it and Signas had seen plenty of hunters that wanted to die, in his time. Sigma wouldn't have killed himself, not and taken the easy way out, but a death in battle, a sacrifice?

Even though Zero had technically only met the real Sigma for less than two minutes and hadn't remembered any of it until years later, Signas had seen more than a little of Zero's own death wish in Sigma. Zero had never tried to kill himself (not that it would have worked). But, when faced with an opportunity to die fighting, a suicide mission or chance to sleep, perhaps forever? He'd always taken it. _Hoping _that this time...

If anything, Signas was almost glad Zero didn't remember his past all that well. He wished being freed from the virus had scrambled Sigma's memories as well. No matter how valuable the knowledge he'd accumulated trying to halt the decay of the virus and create stronger ones had turned out to be, in this precarious existence as energy and data, fading life and memories still sharp enough to cut them to the bone.

Copy-X inwardly winced, looking at Signas. It wasn't that Ciel didn't care. After all, he'd been built because she cared, because she didn't want Neo Arcadia to fall apart. This was Signas' brother that she was calmly calling a 'slaved server,' that might be permanently erased after everything he'd managed to endure and stayed _sane_…

"Okay." Ciel nodded. "We can override this with Exec_Purger and turn him back."

…Or maybe Copy-X was underestimating her, and she'd been showing intent interest in the problem and nothing else because she thought the problem was _solvable _and wanted to rush so people didn't mourn when they didn't have to. The way Ciel had tried not to mourn Passy's death, but find a way for it not to have happened, for her not to be dead.

"That's great, Ciel!" Passy said, hovering over her shoulder. Passy wasn't the only cyber-elf that hadn't turned into a reploid: that was probably because she was a real cyber-elf and didn't have a reploid form.

"So, all we have to do now is focus enough power into the tree, send us to where Zero is, and then you can undo this." Ciel nodded, capping her pen.

Alia looked at Signas, then at Ciel. "He didn't explain _how_." It couldn't be like using their power normally, right? They didn't want to waste their power altering the tree, experimenting with this.

"Well, you should just be able to focus, but that's inefficient. You'll waste a lot of power making the universe find a way to do what you want, instead of just doing it. Give me a second. And does anyone have anything else I can write with? In a different color?"

* * *

_Colonel/Iris __were __meant __to __be __a __psychological __copy __of __X: __Dr. __Cain __was __hoping __this __would __give __them __the __inner __strength __to __resist __the __virus. __They __couldn__'__t __handle __it __and __it __gave __them __a __reploid __version __of __MPD: __their __mind __split __in __two._

_Really, __you __can__'__t __say __Inafune__'__s __idea __of __X __eventually __losing it __and __being __driven __to __eliminate __his __descendant __race __if __that __was __the __only __way __to __end __the __suffering __wasn__'__t __foreshadowed. __Colonel/Iris __went __mad __trying __to __live __like __X __for __a __couple __months: __X __suffered __through __the __wars __and __killing __his __children __for __well __over __a __century_


	27. Birth of All Hope

'_The __water __cycle __song__' __is __another __bit __from __Singing __Hill: __Ar __Ciel __Ar __Dor. _

_Site, knock it off with removing the spaces after my italics. The fact you preserve italics while boards and sites like AO3 don't is one of the major reasons I stick with you, ok?_

* * *

Honestly, if she hadn't realized what she'd realized during the fight against Omega, Leviathan would have had no idea why Harpuia was kicking himself for this, she though, overlooking green that stretched out to the horizon.

Yes, it gave them something else to protect, but what was wrong with having something else to fight for? After all, what was the reason Weil was trying to destroy it? Because it gave them _options_. And options were awesome. Their eggs were no longer all in one basket. There were now two places that could sustain a human population. Of course, there were probably things they'd need to do in order to keep this place sustainable, figure out how much they could harvest and where they should construct the buildings people would live in. Underground, maybe? That would help keep them insulated and wouldn't take up footage on the surface covered in valuable soil.

Since environmental stuff had been X's jurisdiction (his friend and sort-of-stepfather, Dr. Cain, had been a biologist to begin with), they'd have to get the kid on this. As soon as she found the kid.

She took a deep breath and smiled, pleased. It was nice and humid here. She hated how dry the wastes were, and not just because she disliked being at a disadvantage. Organic life had started in the oceans, and the reason humans were bags of salt water was that they were carrying around portable oceans. Like reverse submarines: instead of people bringing air into the ocean so they could move around down there, they were bringing ocean into the air. Which made submarines weird, now that she thought about it. They'd gotten so good at handling the hostile environment that was air that they needed to bring it with them in order to survive when they went back into the womb. Of course, it wasn't like the ocean was easy to survive in, either. At the level she was designed to work on, it was a pressure cooker.

X hadn't wanted his children to fall prey to the general idea that humans were weak, especially when maverick propaganda was part of why it had become what everyone thought in the first place. X had been designed to be able to evolve, because that was such a great way to get stronger. Reploids had evolved on their own, somewhat, because people had learned what worked and what didn't, copied the good ideas. Still, they were all, when you came down to it, based on other people's work. Leviathan was as strong as she was because she'd been built by her father, and Grandad had helped out too.

Organic life also inherited advantages from its parents, so that was fair, but X had been built to be awesome. And a person. Organic life had built itself up from single molecules. It hadn't been given personhood, it had evolved personhood because personhood _worked_.

Most reploids didn't build children or raise them, didn't really think about their legacies. About what would go on into the future. One of the reasons that Leviathan wanted Harpuia to add some goddamn humans to his staff, and was pushing for more contact between the races in general, was that she wanted human attitudes to rub off.

Billions of years of accumulated experience in being really hard to kill was a valuable addition to any military force. Also, female humans especially tended to be aware that Neo Arcadia was where they lived, and where their loved ones would live, even if most of the volunteers the Meikai got went into military service in the first place because they weren't fertile.

Let Fefnir have the ones who wanted to fight because it was fun and it was awesome to get to play with the big guns. Well, not that fighting wasn't fun and weapons weren't shiny, but there were even better reasons to fight.

The first person to speak, other than general exclamations of surprise, confusion and awe (Leviathan hadn't told them what they'd be teleporting into because she wanted to see the looks on their faces) was one of Fefnir's. The Lieutenant Commander in charge of the Antarctic base was one of Harpuia's, because in the event of storms or evacuation it was their specialty that would be paramount, but there had also been a Meikai detachment monitoring the ice shelf and nearby waters and geothermal power came under the Jin'en's scientific division, so they supplied the guards. "So…"

"So…" Lieutenant Ursa (also one of Leviathan's), seemed to be waiting for the reploid to get to the point.

"How do you feel?" Shouldn't the human have more of a reaction than he did?

"How am I supposed to feel?" Yes, it was a forest, but, "Now, if it were a kelp forest…" That would be something. They'd been experimenting with harvesting plankton and algae, since the oxygen-rich waters near the poles were far more hospitable to that sort of life.

"Don't you… feel some kind of mystical connection to it, or something?" It was Nature, after all.

She raised a pale eyebrow at him. "If being constructed of similar materials gave people connection to or deeper understanding of things, then why am I the one you are always asking to fix your equipment?" When he was the one made of metal, nanites, and such things?

Oh, yes, that reminded Leviathan. "Camera-boy." She tapped him on the rear with the end of her spear to break him out of whatever trance he was in. "You'd better have gotten that." This was something of a historic moment, after all.

"Uh… Yes, General Leviathan." Craft now had omnidirectional camera-pickups. Right, right, what would Neige ask? "Is there a reason you're only revealing this to the people of Neo Arcadia now?" Because of the emergency?

He wished Neige was here, and not just for her interviewing skills. She'd dive right into this place, to find out _everything_ and have that look that Hiro had called the light in her eyes. Just so… Craft knew he wasn't the expert at finding words for things, but Neige made him wish he was a nerd like Hiro sometimes, so he didn't have to feel dumb, dumbstruck, all these things he didn't know how to express and Neige would just laugh and grab his hand to drag him along after her.

"It's a surprise to me, too. The area was stealthed to make sure nothing would prevent it from recovering. Since the environment is stable now, Master X thought that now was the time to present it to the people of Neo Arcadia, to show them that Neo Arcadia isn't the only place that survived Weil, and once we beat him again we have stuff like this to look forward to. And so on." Honestly, this was one of the things the kid was good for. Leviathan wasn't one for speeches except for ones of the, "Let's kill them all and loot the bodies for nice replacement parts!" variety. "He'll talk to the people about it whenever he's got a moment, but you can send footage of the place back home." Give people something else to talk about. Besides the massive amounts of ass Fefnir was kicking. And when had he gotten that upgrade? Had he been holding out on her when they sparred? Well, it did make sense that X would give him something awesome since she and Harpuia had gotten networks and Phantom could shapeshift, but _she _wanted to be able to turn into a ginormous dragon.

Sheesh, this was making her act like a one-month-old.

Maybe it was all the green. It was making her think about trips to the recovering areas and the water cycle song. How had it gone? '

A reploid cleared her throat behind her. "We have the equipment loaded onto the hover transport, General Leviathan."

"Good work, Commander." Working to load the equipment Neo Arcadia had teleported over onto the hover they'd brought with them from Antarctica when there was something like this in front of them? Well now, that said something about the discipline of Harpuia's forces. Especially ones who had the fear of the Guardians put into them… that many years ago already?

Sometimes it felt like just yesterday that the kid had arrived, sometimes it felt like decades because so much had gotten done, and not just scrambling to keep up with everything that needed doing, needed fixing, but actual changes. "Any results yet?"

"It would help to be closer to the locations, but having exact time-space coordinates helps. General Harpuia sent us the analysis he already did on the two teleports."

She nodded: of course. Having the kid teleported out from under him, along with Ciel and followed by Zero? Weil might or might not have teleported them directly to his base, but being able to analyze them so soon, and on the spot, would help. If Harpuia hadn't been watching, there would have been far too many variables to even seriously attempt a trace.

When Phantom found out, he was going to be pissed. Harpuia already was, because static on a transmission from him was the equivalent of him muttering curses under his breath or spitting sparks. Getting to blow things up helped work out some of that sheer frustration, but he couldn't use lightning strikes in among the trees here, not without doing Weil's work for him: that was why Leviathan had brought so many troops with her. The Arctic and Antarctic detachments of the Rekku knew about flying in hazardous conditions, and even though they'd been able to afford live fire exercises these past few years, the constant practice made them the best dogfighters the Rekku had.

Well, at least the kid had been snatched in company that would keep Weil busy. Between Zero and Ciel, he'd have other things to focus on than another X knockoff, and the kid knew quite well how to turn off his pain sensors. That hadn't helped Marino, but Weil had the Dark Elf back then. If he had her, they'd know it. The way Omega kept reviving would have meant Weil had gotten his hands on a dark or baby elf if he'd been any other reploid, but it was possible Omega was just doing it on his own. "Alright. All you scientists, establish a base camp and do your thing. Jin'en, you're on camp defense. Rekku, you're with me. Meikai, help get the camp set up and then start patrolling." Weil's snakes couldn't do much damage per hour, but that would add up if they weren't smashed.

"Yes, General Leviathan."

Looking down over the side of the hover transport, Leviathan realized those were lemons down there.

It had been ages since she'd eaten anything that wasn't an energy drink or mineral supplements for her nanites. She could, she'd been given that system and her nanites could tear human food apart for useful atoms and get rid of the rest, but it would have been wasteful when there were people working who actually needed the energy in that food.

Fefnir had liked just about everything, especially if he hadn't tried it before. Harpuia had liked hard candy, something that would stay flavorful for a long time, while she kept working. Sucking on it had been something to do while she thought, the way Leviathan tapped her foot. Leviathan wasn't exactly sure what Phantom liked, besides sweets – he'd spend most of his quality family time with his other parents. He'd probably learned to like those because his mothers kept giving him treats.

She'd liked citrus, she remembered now. Biting through the peels just felt nice, and then there was the problem of getting all the juice in her mouth instead of all over her chin and hands. X had told her that really wasn't the way they were supposed to be eaten, but then laughed and let her have her fun.

She found herself trying to remember what the kid liked, and that made her realize that he'd probably never eaten human food, unless someone had pressed something on him to sample. They probably had, because he was Master X.

But the guardians had never gotten him a birthday cake, or… Well, what reploid got birthday cakes these days? Barely any had, even back then, because the maverick virus had mostly killed reploids before they got old enough or learned enough to think about building children, aside from factory production. Cinnamon had a builder that thought of her as a daughter, but most people didn't.

That was a shame, and not just because people were stronger when they fought for each other. Not just because it made reploids weak, and when Weil had attacked, without the discipline of the wars…

The commander hesitated, but finally made up her mind to intrude on the Guardian's thoughts. "General Leviathan?" Was something wrong?

"It's fine," Leviathan said flatly, then smiled to show she hadn't meant to snap at her. "What is it?"

That forced her to come up with a reason she had disturbed the guardian _other_than one that might tick her off. Fortunately, there was something she wanted to ask, since most of her troops were back at the camp or flying in formation around the transport. "General Leviathan, the reploid in that footage…" No, that was a stupid question. It wasn't as though there weren't other reploids that had long blonde hair – she'd saved up for it herself, after all. And _he_would have used a beam saber. Except perhaps he'd been disarmed? The legendary Zero was the legendary Zero, but with that many mechanaloids dropped on him? "If I may ask, is there a reason one of the Guardians came out here personally to track this teleport?" was what she settled on.

"You may ask," but Leviathan didn't have to tell her anything. Especially since the loss of Dr. Ciel, well now. _That_ would hurt morale, although Weil would hopefully be slow to realize just how important her inventions were, what those generators meant. "But I bet you can guess the answer to _that_question." Of course a Guardian wouldn't be here unless it was important.

Leviathan looked her up and down. The hair, the beam saber clipped at her hip (Leviathan did prefer melee weapons) – this one certainly had cleaned up nicely, after deciding to designate as a female model instead of trying to look something in between. There were people who could carry off the indeterminate look (X, Harpuia after… what she'd done to herself) and then there were people who did… things to their hair and wore the colors that gave pink a bad name. The pale green beret (the Rekku's color, of course) was cute, and while Elpis wasn't the first reploid she'd seen that wore the bulletproof lightweight flex-armor formed into a coat-like shape (being able to remove it and lower the reploid's weight was an energy-saver), she did carry it off well. Honestly, one thing Leviathan liked about modern, smaller designs was that they were far more likely to have actual hips. It was probably appallingly humanocentric of her to prefer designs that were more humanoid, but was it wrong for reploids to remember their roots? They existed because of humans, Leviathan's own grandfather had been a human, even without any genetic relationship to determine their forms.

Well, form had been a matter of personal preference when Leviathan had been built, and she found this far preferable to an animalistic or generic build. Going out of her way to figure out who she wanted to be, how she wanted to look, mastering a non-standard weapon: showed some grit. That she was willing to work to get stronger, be how she'd decided to be. The hair and saber could have meant she was just another Zero worshipper, but using the Rekku's color scheme instead, the green and white? Showed she took her duties as an officer and the defense of Neo Arcadia seriously.

Yes, Leviathan decided: if it weren't for the fact she was on a mission, she would totally hit that. Leviathan hated doormats and yesmen, and since everyone around her was so young and she was _Leviathan,_it was hard to find someone who wouldn't be reduced to that by her reputation and presence. Still, if Elpis had pissed of Harpuia, and then decided to make a name and image for herself instead of curling up in embarrassment and trying to find a deep hole to hide in?

Well, they'd see if she had a backbone, wouldn't they? Since the stealth teleport equipment would only let her take so many people with her, they'd need to be able to kill quietly, and Elpis was the only officer assigned to this rated with a melee weapon. She might have to take Craft, even though he wasn't trained at all by her standards, since taking a human along on an atypical teleport was out of the question and he'd just gotten all those sensory upgrades.

Where was Phantom when you needed him?

He'd _better _not have gotten himself eaten, that was all she had to say about _that_.

* * *

_I've been trying to avoid pairings for the sake of pairings in here, but the games plus this fic have pretty firmly established Leviathan's tastes, in my head, and here she runs into a character who fits that profile and isn't either off-limits or psycho. Of course, there's a pretty significant difference between finding someone physically attractive (enough to rate a wolf-whistle, for example) and marrying them, as some authors seem to forget. The-characters-as-people is a theme here, and attractions/childhood crushes that don't go anywhere are a normal part of life, just like favorite foods. _

_Also, it would be unfair to use the fact that they don't have human gender to only support the pairings that I personally find hot, wouldn't it? Of course, this isn't the only looks-like-femslash referenced in the fic, since Marino and Cinnamon weren't just Axl's harem (Marino claims Axl and Cinnamon were hers, btw)._

_Elpizo's canon design is… Well, you've probably seen it. Also, he gave himself a female name (Elpis, in the Japanese). Well, applying fridge logic, what do you expect when someone given a number instead of a name or any real identity (incl. gender identity) decides to take a female as their role model without really understanding anything at all about what that means and what not to wear? I tend to think that's a shining example of how little the reploids that were kept as essentially slave labor and not allowed to learn any history (on pain of death, in Elpizo's case) know about… most anything. Including aesthetics. Although Zeromuse is all for cute little berets. _

_Elpizo is to Zero as Iris is to X, in a few ways. Honestly, I'd say Elpizo is the character Zero series treats most unfairly, more than Copy-X. Copy-X might not have been in a position where he had a lot of options or knowledge, but he still made his choices. He genuinely wanted to save humanity: if it was just about following Ciel's orders, he wouldn't have chosen to turn against her. He took control of his own destiny and became someone quite distinct from X, even if he was created as a placeholder. When Zero kills him, it's because he damned well earned it. Elpizo just got shafted and treated like he had the idiot ball instead of Ciel because the writers either didn't think to or didn't want to address what a system like Neo Arcadia's means. _


	28. All Hallows' Day

_So far, what's marked as one chapter in my outline looks likely to end up as three. In the outline version, I was thinking that I'd just have X-series people show up and just act like they were a plot device/cameo to get Ciel and Copy-X to their destination, not spend a lot of time on it so I could hurry to the confrontation. _

_The fighting starts soon, I swear. _

_I'm trying to let the Zero series supporting cast actually get to contribute in this fic, so it seemed contrary to the theme to just have the X cast seem like a plot device, when instead I could use them to point out that people were helping X and Zero fight for peace all along. Doing all they could, even though the virus kept it from being all that much. So to fail to address their heroism felt wrong. _

_Also, there's the Cain family. Dr. Cain had probably heard legends of the Light family, and as reploids were based on X, I do think he and X would have tried to base their relationship with their personal creations on that. _

_It's not really design Generation Xerox, but I am hoping that the similarities will create a sense of continuity, that the people of this world were doing their best/what they think is best/being people with all the strength and pettiness that entails in the past as in the present. _

_I make references to Star Trek and Heinlein in the same paragraph – someone did the math on Star Trek's teleporters._

* * *

"You know what this means, right?"

Copy-X blinked at Ciel, because what it meant to him was that they were going to have to go face Weil. Well, technically they, but what it really meant was that _he _was going to have to fight Weil, protect Ciel and save Zero and Lark, if Lark was still in a condition to be saved.

He was aware that the fact there were reploids from before the Elf Wars surviving here as elves, along with the presence here of elves who died in the normal way, had a lot of implications, it was just that _Weil _was occupying his full attention. He had taken this opportunity to switch into combat mode and try to see if there were any preparations he could make or planning he could do without supplies or intel. Still, that might not have been a very good idea, because combat mode made him think faster and his head was already spinning because _Weil _and _Ciel _and what Weil did to humans (he'd eventually managed to figure out what the guardians were talking about, and not just the torture) and the fact Weil built mechanaloids armed with weapons that were designed to hurt humans more than reploids (among other weapons, like those industrial-diamond-edged claws).

If they were going to his base, then obviously he'd have a lot of mechanaloids there, and probably stored veteran reploids. Copy-X had trained, and killed mechanaloids, and elves could empower humans so they weren't totally helpless, albeit temporarily, but _Ciel_. And _Weil._

Having every single weapon he had charged and ready to fire when he went in was obvious, but he hoped he didn't have a moment of panic and just auto-target everything that moved other than Ciel, possibly including Lark.

He wished Leviathan was here to hit him on the head with the flat of her spear and tell him to calm down. He wished Leviathan was here in general, really, because then he wouldn't be doing this alone.

Well, it wasn't fair to Ceil and the elves to say he'd be doing it alone, but he'd still much rather have Leviathan. Ciel would be a target and the elves had died. Leviathan hadn't. Since not dying and not letting Ciel die was the idea, he'd much rather have Leviathan along.

"Okay. Well, step one of my new plan is, we build a whole lot of generators. Well, _another _lot of generators." Neo Arcadia needed generators.

"It sounds like a good plan so far?" New generators were always appreciated.

"Step Two: We use some of them to power a portal between this space and normal space, either a permanent one or open it once a day or so. It would depend on how the power grid worked out. Because, we send power through that portal, see, and then elves can use it to recharge and come back to life. Step Three: build empty bodies for the elves that used to be reploids, and the elves that want to have bodies," because it would have been so much better if Passy had hands, because then Ciel would have had two lab minions – Ahem, she meant assistants. "Step Four: figure out a way for humans to become immortal, too." Ciel paused, fiddling with the first pen she'd borrowed. "Well, there is that man we met, but if he really is stuck here, that would be kind of boring for most people. Still, if there were a lot of other dead people here to talk to?" Ciel frowned. "We'd still have to find _something _productive for them to do, though." So they weren't stuck just hanging around feeling useless while everyone else got to contribute.

It took Copy-X a moment to switch mental gears to actually _thinking_ about something other than tactics, and then another to hit up his memory databases and try to piece together the bits and pieces Harpuia and the others had told him over the years, mostly while talking about other things. They hadn't wanted to go into detail about the Elf Wars, and now that he thought about it, it seemed as though there were things about the original Maverick Wars they deliberately weren't telling him either, and maybe not just because they hadn't wanted to 'scar him for life.'

Sometimes it was a little insulting. They did it because they cared, and if he asked they'd tell him most things, but he wasn't a child. Reploids didn't _have _childhoods. Trying to give him one was spoiling him, and since he was pretending to be Master X he had enough special privileges other reploids didn't have already, thank you. It was the way things were, and it would be wrong to turn down gifts people wanted to give him, but it still wasn't fair.

So it had to be paid back, or paid forward, and he already had so many things to repay, to be thankful for. But what this meant? "It's been done," he realized. "The maverick virus. Right?" he asked Commander Signas.

"Yes, I'm afraid. It wouldn't let them die, not if they were effective. Not just my brother: there was a maverick named Vile who managed to capture Zero and nearly kill X during the first war. He returned to life several times."

That fit with what Phantom had told him. "The good people died, or worse, and the bad people didn't." Copy-X realized what he'd just said. "I mean, the good people that were turned into bad people." He hadn't meant to say that Signas' brother hadn't been a good person, not when Signas must have heard that more than enough times when it wasn't _true_. Mavericks hadn't been evil, just sick. Getting sick wasn't someone's fault, especially when they'd caught it because they were trying to save people.

It wasn't right, that good people should be 'rewarded' for being good by getting infected. It wasn't right that good people died and the twisted monsters that killed them kept returning, over and over.

"It's alright," Signas assured him.

"So, if a _virus _can do it, that's a programmed, automated system. So it shouldn't be that hard to set up an actual system instead of doing it this way." Ciel waved at the tree, her diagrams and the program she'd finally written out (on the ground, of course) for the elves to read. It would work, but it was still really inefficient, since it took the energy from dozens of elves for two physical beings and four elves to come back to life. She had really only done some rough calculations, but it looked as though the addition of an outside power source would let the ratio of 'dead person' to 'person who comes back to life' approach 1:1 without too much trouble.

It was just having enough power to run the system, and actually building and maintaining the system. That was practically all of Neo Arcadia's problems in a nutshell, but she was working on that. It was really just a matter of time and implementation, now that she'd worked out the hard part, right?

Master X would be really happy, she thought. He must have missed all these people: Alia and Signas used his name without the Master, like Zero. Master X would be so happy to see them again.

"_He__'__ll __be __proud __of __me_," she thought, and if that made her blush at all, it was hidden in the excitement on her face. She'd disappointed him by building Copy-X instead of trying to change the world herself. She didn't regret having built him, but if she could change the world into a place where no one had to die? Where if someone watched their friend die in front of them, like she had Passy, they wouldn't have to be sad because they knew they'd get them back?

"It's… that easy?" Alia looked sad, then shook her head, laughing softly. "I suppose for someone who could perfectly copy X…"

"If you manage to figure out how Zero could regenerate like that, you won't have to build many new bodies, either," a reploid whose armor looked like a lab coat commented. "We all knew the technology existed, Alia, we just couldn't figure out how to duplicate it. I tried to learn what I could about Zero's, but…" Ah well. He'd expected to get infected, really, going that deep into a virus-infested area for the sake of research. He'd known the virus targeted scientists, but finding Zero? If the world could get one of the only two immune hunters back, after he'd been given up as lost?

"I'm sorry, Gate."

"Hmm? No, it was a pretty good reason to die." And back then, if you fought the virus and you had any brains then you had to come to terms with the fact you probably weren't going to survive. Especially if you were a scientist. "You became X's spotter." So it wasn't as though Alia hadn't painted a target on her own back.

"I mean, for…" Alia didn't want to say it.

Copy-X looked at Signas, who wasn't rolling his eyes but still had an expression a little like Phantom's when he'd heard this conversation far, far too many times. "Are we almost ready?"

"Yes, sir," Alia reported: Gate and Ciel nodded.

"We've almost reached the point of diminishing returns," Palette added. "I don't think we'll be able to send a fifth elf through, not with enough charge to accomplish the mission." Sigma's spirit could hardly be considered that of an ordinary reploid, since he was ancient and had experience as the virus' moderator, but the virus broke minds in order to break into them. Even though the Mother Elf and X had picked up the pieces when all the reploids were cured, all the former mavericks still had… holes. Cracks. If they channeled too much power into the system he'd become, it would start to leak and they couldn't waste precious energy like that.

"Um, Commander…"

"I'm not a commander any more, Colonel Iris." She kept the colonel because it was one of her names, but Signas had been built to help Dr. Cain run data analysis and find ways to prevent the construction of irregulars. He'd have preferred never having to become commander and run a decades-long world war. "And we've already discussed this. Unless you're refusing the mission?"

"No, sir… Brother," one of her remembered calling the other of her that, but Signas was also her brother, "but…"

"You're the most qualified for the mission." Regardless of her feelings of unworthiness.

They'd discussed this? Out of Copy-X's earshot? Or actually, he realized, given this place and his systems, they would have had to jam it or something to keep the conversation private. Why? Was it just that Signas hadn't wanted the others to be jealous, or was there something he hadn't wanted Copy-X or Ciel to know? Secret orders?

According to Phantom, Signas had written a treatise on hiding information from the enemy when people could be mind-controlled. He knew they'd be dealing with Weil, who must be trying to find the baby elves, so it made sense. The fewer people knew something, the less likely Weil was to find out.

Come to think of it, while Passy had insisted on coming with them (and they hadn't argued, because if she hadn't insisted, Ciel would have, and Copy-X wasn't going anywhere without Ciel), Copy-X wasn't sure why the other two had been selected, either. Were they spotters or hackers? According to Leviathan female model combat units had been rare back then, and he was fairly sure it had been a female voice that told the other one to stay in cyber-elf form to conserve energy.

"I'm not sure it's a good idea to appear exactly where Weil had Zero appear, though," Ciel said, to change the subject because things were getting awkward again. Iris' face was the same as that of her creation (not to mention Master X), so it kind of bothered her to see an expression like that on it. Ciel had made a mistake, but she hoped her creation never thought _he_ was a failure, the way Iris clearly did. "I mean, he must have put them into a cell, or something." Letting Zero loose on his base? "If we're already leaking power, it might not be that inefficient to send one cyber-elf through now." Since most of the extra power it would take would be lost no matter what they did.

That was a good idea: Copy-X and Signas were a little surprised for a moment.

Ciel had thought of it not because she'd looked at the problem from a tactical angle, but because of her studies of teleportation. Way back in the mists of time (19XX, actually), someone had worked out that teleportation should require more energy to work than actually existed in the universe. Since teleportation obviously worked, and didn't have a problem sending people from the surface to a station in orbit, which was obviously a huge increase in potential energy, it had been clear to Ciel that teleportation played merry hell with the laws of thermodynamics in a way that could potentially produce a lot more energy than it took the system to perform the teleport. If it weren't for the TANSTAAFL principle, Ciel would have seriously considered working out how to build a teleportation-based perpetual motion machine to generate power for Neo Arcadia. "Wait, do you guys know how to serve as teleport coordinates and handle teleports?" Human-safe teleports? That technology hadn't been around back then.

"I'll do it," Passy said.

* * *

"Ah!" Lark tried to hold on as one of the moving panels came at them, but even after her upgrades she didn't have the most grip strength in the world. She'd meant for her cry to warn Zero, but sound didn't carry here.

A white-gloved hand grabbed Lark's foot and pulled her back before she went tumbling very far: he kicked off another moving panel to send them back towards the body of the station. He tucked her head under his chin, one arm wrapped around her and the other digging into the surface of a panel, so that she could feel the vibrations and hear his words that way. "Don't use your dash boots if you can avoid it: there's no air here. How many charges do you have stored?"

"One." Dash boots worked by releasing compressed air: no air, no refills.

He frowned. "…He stored a beam saber template, but not a safety cord." Typical. When he shook his head, he saw the hair floating around them. "Hold on to the station here and give me one of your wrists." He could hold on with electromagnets in his boots, but if she had those, she would have used them already.

He carefully wrapped a hank of that hair around her wrist (so thin, for a reploid), and tied it with a complicated knot that he checked twice before finally nodding. A five-foot leash was better than no safety net: he didn't want her to go drifting off into deep space, or burn as she fell into earth's atmosphere. That would defeat the purpose.

He was just going to save this one child: that was all. Of course, he told himself that, but…

Focus.

It shouldn't be too hard to find a teleporter or the teleport shield controls, once this station finished configuring. He knew how the architect generally handled things like that, after all.

He let go of Lark and channeled plasma through that hand again, preparing to burn the next handhold into the station's surface. Boots or no boots, she needed handholds and there were ways to interfere with electromagnetism, so he couldn't count on them.

"_Long __time __no __see.__" _

He turned to look at the cyber-elf that had addressed him, and knew that he should be happy. Should be overjoyed, in fact, to see her again. Alive in some form. Not to mention sane. Should be happy to see them both.

Yet all he felt was weariness, because he was going to have to pretend, now. Pretend to feel what he should have felt, pretend to be happy to see them so he wouldn't hurt their feelings. Pretend to be okay, so they wouldn't feel sorry for him, perhaps even blame themselves for what was his responsibility, in the end.

Seeing them should have been a relief. He shouldn't want to tell them to go away, because he really just didn't want to deal with this right now. He didn't have the energy to deal with people, and he knew he couldn't keep up the pretense for very long. They'd been through enough: he really should make an effort to try to make this a happy reunion for them.

And now the silence had dragged on as he looked at her, when he should have smiled and said, 'It's good to see you too,' or something along those lines right away. How to cover a slip like that? He settled for smiling ruefully and saying, "_Sorry, __I__'__m __running __a __little __slow __right __now_. _I __just __woke __up, __it__'__s __been __hectic __and __compatibility_." Or complete lack thereof.

A reploid who said that would have been telling the truth, with these doubly-foreign systems and all their inputs to deal with.

Yet he was no reploid, and that was a barefaced lie. He should know better than that, and he did, but…

"_Are __you __alright?__" _the other elf asked.

"_Wow, never thought I'd see _you_ scatterbrained," _the first one commented, coming closer.

No, he was not alright, and he didn't want to let her figure that out. What to do…


	29. Of Airless Darkness

…_I got to absolutely nothing of what I had planned this chapter. _

_I'd appreciate feedback on whether you feel that this was a waste of three thousand-plus words or not._

* * *

They were in space.

Harpuia had taken Copy-X into the upper reaches of the atmosphere once, to show him the view. Even though Copy-X was flight-capable, Harpuia had still needed to carry him above a certain altitude. He could get higher than Lark, but once the air got that thin…

The view had been awesome, according to his internal dictionary. Not the way Fefnir would use it, but in the sense of awe-inspiring.

He'd been able to see the entire city reduced to such a small thing, the ocean in the distance, the wastes dotted by ruined cities, interrupted by differently-colored patches that were limited ecology areas and purification forests. Copy-X thought that had been Harpuia's equivalent of the way Phantom had taken him to that window to show him the city, both a lesson and a test, to see if he was worthy of trying to bear the burden of X's image, if his siblings' insane plan might actually work.

The city that had seemed so unimaginably huge, full of complicated things and complicated people had been reduced to this small, fragile thing. All alone in this big world, the only place where humans could live, and that meant it was important to reploids too, because… Well, if Ciel died, then what good was he? That was how he'd thought back then. Most reploids didn't have human family members, but humans were family, and if they all died? Because he, because reploids failed, then wouldn't the reploids follow? Because if two, three with the elves, races working together couldn't take care of each other, couldn't survive in this world, than how could only one alone? One that had already failed?

The city really was fragile, really could fall apart if it wasn't protected, wasn't taken care of properly, carefully.

Seeing it this way had explained a lot about Harpuia, really. Why he was so worried all the time, why he wore himself out trying to do everything. Fefnir had told Copy-X to just do what was in front of him, protect the people he could. Leviathan had said to look at what was going on, think about how things were connected and keep in mind that what he did would have ripples, come back to him, but what everyone else did was just as important, so thinking too far ahead wouldn't do anyone any good, he had to react in the now to try to determine what would happen soon. Phantom had told him to be quiet and listen to people, pay attention to them, because one person could only do so much but if he delegated, picked the right person for a task, the one who would try their hardest? It wasn't his job to take care of everything, it was his job to make sure that the people of Neo Arcadia were secure enough that everyone could do their jobs instead of worrying about the future.

Harpuia worried.

Copy-X hadn't thought that was silly of him at all, even though the others had been trying really hard to tell Copy-X not to worry. Because if something was important, than how could you not worry about it when it was in danger? Someone had to look at the big picture. Someone had to keep in mind that things could go wrong.

There was useless worrying, the kind that Copy-X would probably have done a lot of, when he hadn't had a lot of experience solving problems and they'd all seemed so big. He was lucky he had an internal com and the Guardians had made sure he knew he was _supposed _to call them if anything came up, because if X looked worried, it would worry the city. That kind was a waste of time, just standing around fretting about how he didn't know what to do.

Then there was the useful kind of worrying, which was thinking, 'what if something went wrong with the hydroponics farms?' and going through and making a list of what could happen, what could reasonably be done to prevent it… and then stockpiling enough food for a few months anyway, no matter how much people complained about how they wanted to use that food now, so that even if the worst _did _happen, there wasn't any need to worry anymore because they'd just land in the safety net.

Copy-X really thought that you couldn't fly without learning how to do that kind of worrying. Because flying was dangerous: a lot of things could go wrong, especially if you were fighting up there, and even if the missiles didn't kill you the fall still might. A lot of the veteran Rekku weren't very well liked, especially by Fefnir's forces. They said they were arrogant bastards. It didn't make much sense that people who did something so dangerous would be convinced they were invincible, but that was actually why. In order to do what they did and _survive_, they had to think about all the things that could happen, how to make sure they didn't and how to pull out of it if they did. They had to know exactly how safe they were, exactly how good they were, in order to fly dangerous missions that needed doing. It was confidence, not arrogance: it had to be an honest assessment. The cowards and people who underestimated their abilities didn't fly and the arrogant ones died.

Most people other than the Guardians thought Harpuia had tons of that kind of arrogance. The Guardians thought he was a worrywart, because he was honest with them and a lot of his job was telling them that it really was important to lay in stockpiles even though there were things they could have used those supplies for and that… that things could happen, and if they weren't ready Neo Arcadia really could die.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Ciel asked, nose to the glass, not even flinching back when a panel flew by outside.

It was pretty, yes: ocean and clouds and so on were, but to Copy-X it looked like a big to-do list.

If Area Zero was how all of it was supposed to look, how all of it _could_look, then there was just so much that needed doing! It gave him this worried feeling that he was really behind schedule somehow, even though Neo Arcadia was coming along nicely. That was just Neo Arcadia, though.

Still, if he couldn't protect that little corner of the world, how could he protect any of it? And if he couldn't even protect one person, his builder, the scientist whose inventions were saving Neo Arcadia, then he really would be failing everyone. "We're in space?" He was pretty sure that, "No one told me we were going to be in space!"

"You aren't agoraphobic, are you? Or no, what's the word for fear of heights?" Iris' reploid body had come with an internal dictionary her cyber-elf form didn't have stored, since it was a reference, not one of her personal memories.

Copy-X managed to point at Ciel, beginning to understand why Harpuia could get so annoyed when people missed the obvious. Harpuia was usually patient with him, because Copy-X tried hard to learn things, to keep his ignorance from letting people get hurt and Harpuia recognized that effort. "Human! And we're in space?" Maybe it was combat mode's fault that everyone seemed to be so slow right now? It probably wasn't their fault, and he shouldn't be short with people but oh, oh _crap_. "Spacesuit!" Help me find one! Where had the other two elves gone? They could fly through walls and even though Copy-X had a couple sensors that would see through them, he wasn't sure how to make sense of that data enough to find a spacesuit… Actually, he couldn't see through these walls. Well, there went that idea.

Even though he hadn't wanted to leave Ciel behind somewhere, if he'd known Weil's base was in space he would never have let her come. He'd have made them find _some _way to teleport her somewhere else.

Vaccuum. Narrow corridors with no cover. And what was all that outside the windows? Space garbage, the remains of ancient orbitals and space projects? What if some of it crashed into the station? Not to mention that there had to be sensor coverage _everywhere_here, if the station was still maintaining itself well enough to have hull integrity and atmosphere.

It wouldn't be safe to fight when Ciel was in the same room as him and the enemy, not safe at all. Leaving her in a closet somewhere out of the way with her gun and Zero's saber was also out of the question, because whoever was running security would know she was there and could send mechanaloids to outflank him, get behind him and get to her.

"Oh no!" Passy was the next to realize it. "Why didn't I realize that?"

"What are you talking about?" Iris asked apologetically.

"Humans can't breathe in space! Ciel, get away from that window!" What if one of those big hunks of metal crashed through it and hit her? Passy was so agitated her energy levels and the light she gave off were fluctuating rapidly: it was a good thing the genes responsible for that kind of seizure had been edited out of the human population already.

"But she's breathing fine now…" And Dr. Cain had visited Repliforce's station a few times.

"That's because there's air here." The floor under them was already vibrating, not just from the station's engines but as though it was constantly getting knocked into.

Copy-X spun around a bare half-second before a wall opened, revealing itself to be an airlock. A recorded voice began speaking, the kind of generic female voice that was used for announcements in old movies, where it was clear some things, like numbers, were being patched into a template. "Replekia mode conversion forty-three percent complete. As of now, two minutes and counting until disassembly of this sector. Fifty-eight seconds until all systems are shut down and accessways closed for transport. All non- construction personnel, please relocate to a hub sector so that your crushed bodies do not get in the way during reassembly. Thank you, and have a nice day."

Ciel dove into a corner for what cover there was when the airlock opened. That last part of the announcement made her pause in the act of getting back to her feet, since it sounded like going through the airlock, or going _somewhere_, would be a better idea. The question was which way. But, seriously, who programmed an announcement like that?

Copy-X grabbed her arm, pulling her up the rest of the way. "Go outside the station and find out which way the hub is!" he ordered Passy and Iris, who were just floating there, also surprised. "Hold on," he told Ciel, lifting her up and triggering his dash boots. He wasn't sure this was the right direction, but if they stayed here she was dead. A fifty-percent (more, if he was fast enough and this area was small enough that he could turn around and still make it in time if he ran into a dead end) chance of survival was better than none.

What was really limiting his speed was the fact he might have to turn around and these passages were small and twisty (which made sense, for a space station). He couldn't afford to crash into a wall: he'd be fine, Ciel wouldn't. Phantom had made sure he knew how to make use of his dash boots in tight spaces, but he didn't have Phantom or Harpuia's turning radius. Not only did they have more experience, but they'd been built for agility, so in that respect they might even be superior to X…

"Stop!" Ciel shouted, pointing to something in front of him that became something behind him as he skidded to a halt. "That console wasn't covered." It wasn't the kind of console she was used to, that was half-desk, but a viewscreen and keyboard with an i/o jack set into a wall. They could probably be retracted into it or covered.

"So either this area won't be disassembled or it won't be disassembled yet…" He hoped it wouldn't. But then, the second might be better, because Weil's forces might hesitate to go into an area that would get taken apart soon.

Well, no, he knew better than that. They'd do what Weil told them to, and Weil wouldn't care about their lives. Still, if Weil was in the 'hub area,' and had Zero there, then he had to know that they'd come to him.

Ciel was already pushing his arms aside and heading for the console.

Iris was the first elf to find them again. "Why did you go rushing off like that?"

"Didn't you hear the announcement?" he asked her, a little shocked. She was a copy of X, so surely she couldn't be stupid, right? Modern elves tended to not have a lot of brainpower because that took energy: maybe that was the problem? Had she put most of her mental functions into sleep mode, or something?

Actually, there was a perfectly logical reason Copy-X had instantly understood what that message meant and Iris was still trying to figure out why the two of them had scrambled to get out of there. "I set your translation software on automatic," Ciel told him, trying to see if she could use her finger to tap a window and get it open and relieved to find this was a touchscreen. "Maybe set it to give you a notification when something isn't in the modern language?"

"…But I couldn't read what you wrote, and it didn't translate when the two of you were talking about the languages."

"Well, X's system is supposed to adapt," she reminded him. "Either that, or there's a special case for when people are talking about words that aren't in the main language they're using. Check your settings." It wasn't that she'd mind being tech support, he was her creation, but she was kind of busy here. "Huh?" She stared at the screen. "That's not good." Only one alternate language option, and now she could only understand one term in six instead of about half of them. That was no help, so she switched it back. This was the 'user interface' level, too. If this system really was programmed in New Testament, then it would use more of those compound symbol-words the more precise it needed to be, or the more complicated the concepts were. "There aren't any human language options, it's using a language developed by Dr. Wily and I'm betting the other setting is that other language he mentioned, the one only robot masters used. I don't think Weil built this station."

"You think this station was run by a robot master, before the Cataclysm?" Copy-X asked, most of his attention on his sensory data. He couldn't see through the walls and all the thumps would make it almost impossible to tell what noises were the footsteps of someone trying to sneak up on them.

"I think it belonged to one of Dr. Wily's robot masters. Wasn't he the enemy of Master X's family?" Her face was pale.

Copy-X might be in more danger here than she was, if X's signature really had been known back then, at least by the really good scientists? What if the station thought X was here? There had to be a defense system, even if… Yes, it was mostly shut down right now because everything was being moved around.

"Can you control the station at all?" Iris asked.

"No." This was a locked terminal, probably for maintenance people to check and so on. "I can get it to display data, but it won't run commands unless they're elf-type input." Mental commands. "Exec… I mean Method programs. From reploids too? I think that's what the i/o jack is for. Or robot masters, I guess, if this was built by them." Wow, that was a weird thought, to be somewhere that ancient. This place might even be older than Master X. "I'm pretty sure whoever made this didn't want humans using it, at all." Human accessibility was the default: leaving out normal language options and the rest of it had to be deliberate design choices. Wait? "Where's Passy?"

Copy-X held up his hand for her to be quiet. He didn't want to fire, not when these walls had the kind of polish that meant they were hardened against plasma blasts and other energy shots and would even reflect some of it. Probably not enough to bother a reploid unless it was a specialized laser, but he couldn't take chances, not with Ciel. "Can I borrow your beam saber?" He didn't want to, not when Zero had given it to her, but otherwise, he would have to fight unarmed. He did have some unarmed combat training, courtesy of Phantom, but all of it was focused on flinging the enemy off him so he could then either fire his buster or run for his guards, and that wouldn't solve the problem right now.

Ciel opened her mouth to say yes, but closed it and just nodded, reaching into her pocket.

Copy-X didn't really know how to use a beam saber, either, but…

Apparently he did. Or rather, his systems did.

The fight made a lot of noise, since they were both covered in metal and so were the walls. He could hope it was lost in the general din, but he knew that they were probably being watched anyway, so this wouldn't make any difference or give away their location. Just a single reploid without any elves, sent to attack a copy of X with two cyber elves?

Weil had thrown this reploid's life away. Copy-X felt a little sick inside when he realized that, and even worse when he realized that the reploid he was fighting _knew _that and was _happy_.

No one… no one should want to die.

No one should want to hurt anyone else.

He'd told Iris, not that long ago, that someone should think before killing people, but he had thought. Ciel would be safer in one way if he let her be captured, but… Ciel, his builder, in Weil's hands?

Fighting this way felt more like piloting a ride armor than fighting himself. Like he was entering commands to slice like _that_, when his systems prompted him. Like he was baggage, and all he could really do was get out of the way and let this body's trained reflexes do the fighting for him.

It felt like pushing a button, or gripping a joystick. Not really _real_.

And only a few seconds later (although it felt like so much longer in combat mode, watching that flurry of quick dodges and slashes) someone was dead.

He'd just killed someone. A person, Weil's or not. Not a mechanaloid, a person.

He didn't know how to feel about that. That itself bothered him: shouldn't there be an immediate reaction? Horror, more of that _this __is __wrong_ sickness, _something_? Was there something wrong with him, would he really go crazy and start killing lots of people the way that man had said?

Yet he did feel something, he just… didn't know how to deal with it.

Maybe it would be wrong if he did, if he could just come to a conclusion about this instantly, like it was a simple thing instead of someone's life. Should he cry, when that wouldn't bring them back? Cry just so that he would feel better, as though mourning would make this any less wrong of him?

No. This wasn't something that he could just come to terms with an instant. He couldn't try to deal with this now, not when Ciel was in trouble. Not when other people had to be saved.

He'd told Iris that he'd just do his best, if it came to this, and he couldn't make himself a liar so soon.

He wanted Harpuia, Leviathan, _someone_. They'd said they'd try to keep him from having to kill anyone. But that wasn't right either, to want to force the burden of killing onto someone else and keep his hands clean when he wanted Ciel protected, Neo Arcadia safe just as much as they did, and that meant that he was responsible for whatever it took to bring that about, whether or not he was the one that fired the buster or held the beam saber.

This wasn't right, but he couldn't think of another way. So he'd just have to do this now, and see if he could live with himself later.


	30. What We Must

_And here I explain a few things. I was planning to have this come out during a battle royale, but as I found with ToT, it's not easy to do that, let alone do it without screwing up the flow. I'm just happy I managed to get Leviathan finding out about this while fighting Omega with Phantom to work in execution._

* * *

One of the many reasons tracing teleports was a pain in the ass came down to basic orbital mechanics.

The earth rotated around its axis, around the sun. So, if a teleport trace was run even hours after the teleport, it would report that the destination of the teleport had been space. Because, before very long at all, the location that used to be that of a base would become buried deep within the earth, or in the upper atmosphere, hundreds of miles away from whatever had been at that point in space at the moment of the teleport.

So tracing a teleport's destination in space would tell you pretty close to absolutely nothing. You had to trace it in space-time. This was complicated by the fact that since teleportation was faster than light, any teleportation was technically time travel, when the people who studied that sort of thing crunched the numbers.

When someone tried to do the math on a teleport trace and the result was a location in outer space, the assumption was that they'd made an error somewhere, because about ninety-nine percent of trace attempts showed results like that, and almost a hundred percent of the time this meant there was an error somewhere.

It wasn't until Spotter Commander Rouge had to give up running the analysis, after so many attempts without a single result worth checking out and Guardian Harpuia told her to send him the data, he was taking over (because failing to find Copy-X, Zero and Dr. Ciel was _not _an option) that he noticed something.

Out of the second half of calculation attempts (the ones where the data had been reasonably refined), almost fifteen percent of them were, once adjusted for the inevitable loss of precision inherent in the calculation techniques, roughly located along an odd sort of four-dimensional waveform.

Neo Arcadia's teleportation system reckoned everything from a 'point zero' at the center of the earth's core (specifically the center of gravity), used the magnetic poles as the z axis and had one end of the x axis set at Neo Arcadia. In 21XX, the x axis had been set at Cain Labs, since they'd developed the modern teleportation network there and most of the equipment had originally been there.

Harpuia remembered thinking that trying to trace a teleport while they were switching over would have been hell, which was why he'd never bothered. Setting the X axis location at Cain Labs didn't make any difference, nor did setting it at the old international date line & the z axis at geographic north, which had been the protocol back in 20XX.

Then he realized he was going about it the wrong way.

From what vantage point would every point along the waveform appear to be the same point in space-time? Not from earth's core or even from a point on earth's surface, tracing loops through space as it circled around the earth's core, earth circled around the sun, the sun circled around the black hole at the galaxy's core and the galaxy itself moved onward.

But, from a certain point in high orbit, if that was set as point zero, then all of Harpuia's four-dimensional graphs became, if not nice and neat, then at least they assumed a sensical pattern.

In the case of the teleport of Copy-X and Ciel it was the pattern of a failed teleport, the kind that happened… Well, that didn't happen, because there were safety mechanisms. Teleporting without an endpoint was a theoretical possibility, but the architecture of every teleportation system's programming had been set up in such a way so that it just couldn't happen. Still, the maverick hunters had learned how to track teleports that had failed because of teleport barriers, to determine either where the mavericks had come from or where they were trying to go. Every time Harpuia had seen this pattern before, the people who had tried to teleport had stayed right where they were. Copy-X and Ciel shouldn't have vanished.

Of course, every known teleportation system had also set its point zero at earth's core.

And teleporting a human without elf assistance… Well, Harpuia hadn't been that impressed with Ciel's rationality, as opposed to her genius, to begin with. As long as she was alive and could keep producing her inventions, he honestly didn't care, and teleportation damage wasn't likely to interfere with _that_, not as long as it was only one teleport, anyway.

Regardless, there had to be something there, even if it was only a beacon, for a teleport system to set it at point zero. Specifically, there _had__been_something there, heavily stealthed, before it had continued in its orbit around the earth. The problem was figuring out where it was now.

Which was why Harpuia was busy teleporting all his satellites' maintenance drones to various places along various theoretical orbital paths, trying to find a place he couldn't find. For instance, someplace he couldn't send a drone to because there was a teleport shield. Somewhere from which they could only send back static, if he could connect to them at all. A vantage point from which they could see a dark mass blotting out the stars: a hole in the sky, a nothingness.

He'd expected something dark, quiet, sleek and subtle.

Instead, he found a hornet's nest.

That kept hacking his drones: he lost about nineteen of them before he managed to keep control over one of them long enough to get a clear picture of the swirling mass.

Yes, hacking was a theoretical risk, since his drones were based on robotics technology instead of mechanaloid technology, but that was the thing: there shouldn't have been anyone _left _capable of hacking robots like that. Not in real time. Not when he had assumed direct control of them. Weil? Weil had studied nanite-based reploids, newtype nanites and elves: what would he know about the 'primitive' technology that had come before them?

It was probably a baby elf, Harpuia would have thought, except Weil having found a baby elf was _not _a reassuring thought, and he'd had baby elves try to take control of him before, he knew what they felt like. This was something else.

* * *

"I'd tell you to return to Neo Arcadia and take Fefnir's place, if I felt like wasting my time," Harpuia said after Leviathan had ordered all the minions out of the temporary command post while the adults talked about classified things.

"Mmm, I don't know," Leviathan said thoughtfully, leaning towards the screen even though it was displaying a picture of the station instead of Harpuia's face. "Fighting Omega _is _fun. It's a little suspicious that you're worried, though."

"Suspicious?" What was she on about now?

"Well, warning me to be worried about outdated hacking techniques?" She switched to her internal com for the rest. "_Sure, __we __may __be __robot __master __hybrids, __but __we __were __still __constructed __using __android __mental __protection __technology, __after __all_." Only a robot master could run the massive systems, with all the subordinate units, it would take to control the seas and skies. Or rather, a reploid could control them: only a robot master could _be _them. If Harpuia wasn't focused on the job, worried about her and the kid, if he weren't too professional to act like her he'd be vowing vengeance right now. Hacking his drones? They might as well have chopped off his fingers or kidnapped his babies.

Well, they kind of had: Harpuia wasn't the only one determined to rescue Copy-X.

"_The __only __reason __for __a __reploid __to __worry __about conventional __hacking, without elves or the virus involved, __would __be __if __they _weren't _a __reploid. __Isn__'__t __that __true, __dear __sister?__" _Her voice lingered on those last two words. Because the first part of that sentence was true, and that meant the second half wasn't. That was _why _the second half wasn't.

Harpuia was glad Leviathan couldn't see his face. Not that his face would have given it away right now: the lights were on in that body, but his mind was in his system. "…And?" And what was Leviathan going to do now, when this really wasn't the time? What was _she_going to do about it? It was Harpuia's decision, and it was decades, _ages _too late for her to complain about it, or say Harpuia had done something wrong when Leviathan hadn't even _noticed_.

…It had maybe bothered her a little that Leviathan hadn't noticed. Maybe. Except Harpuia had no room for weak feelings like that, not anymore. Not when there was a mission to accomplish and the survival of humanity at stake.

"It took me awhile to figure out why you did it," Leviathan said lightly, as though she was just musing. "I mean, _why_? It wasn't like you needed to be better at using your systems when none of us had the time or energy to use them. Then I remembered the last time I saw you get _upset_, instead of varying degrees of frustrated. Remember? What Weil said to Father?"

It had been cruel and, Leviathan had thought, ridiculous. But then, Leviathan had been born in a world where the maverick virus was a thing of the past. When everyone had rejoiced in the certainty that they were finally free of that fear, that nothing like that would ever happen again.

But then came that scene of destruction. All over the world, reploids were killing people, even each other. Carnage and madness and they'd seen how for Father it was almost _déjà __vu_.

"Weil told him that all his children were doomed to go maverick. That he'd brought an accursed race into the world, and deserved to suffer for it, suffer by watching the consequences of his actions." Suffer by watching his children suffer, murder and die. Suffer by being the one to have to put them down. "He said it was _justice_," Leviathan snarled, and in her mouth that word became a curse, an obscenity, because Weil's idea of justice? Obscene was the only word for it.

"We all told Father that Weil was full of bullshit. We all said that no way would we let ourselves be taken, that we'd never go maverick, never start killing humans and he'd never have to put us down like rabid dogs. We all promised that, and we've all damn well kept our word. But you? You didn't settle for promises, did you? You were always the smart one, the one who listened to Grandfather about all the technical stuff. You _liked_the history." Liked the books X had pressed on them. "And you knew a way to _ensure _that you'd keep that promise, didn't you? A way to make sure that virus nanites wouldn't be able to screw with your thoughts. A way to make sure you'd never start trying to eliminate humanity. So you took it, didn't you? You reconfigured yourself. We were all told that we could, that we _should_, become whoever, whatever we wanted to be." And they'd all believed that, tried to live by that, like the children they'd been. "You reprogrammed yourself into a full robot master. Removed all the nanites from your mental processes. Destroyed your protections against non-viral reprogramming _and __installed __the __first __law_, didn't you!" Leviathan's fist would have gone right through the desk if she'd pulled the blow a moment later.

Silence from the viewscreen.

"The thing is," Leviathan said softly, "I want to ask you why, even though I know why." To spit in Weil's eye, although that was more a Leviathan reason to do something like that. To keep X's heart from breaking any further.

"Because I studied the Maverick Wars." And not just the battles, the honor, not just that they'd _survived_. She'd read all of it, including how, for a long time, doom had seemed absolutely certain. Just a war of attrition, just a matter of time. "I knew that promises didn't mean anything, not when it came to the virus." It had taken _everyone _that X had loved. Everyone except Zero, and Weil not only had access to the power that had trumped the virus, but he knew how much it would hurt X to lose them as well. The children he'd brought into the world thinking that they would finally be _safe_, to make up for all the ones that had been built in a dying world, built to fight and die and be taken because X couldn't find another way. "And if something was going to take away my free will, then it was going to be _me_." No one else. "_My _decision." When so many of X's children had that decision taken away from them. "_I _chose this, Leviathan." Because she had refused to ever betray humanity. Ever betray what X had fought for. Ever become evidence that bastard had been _right_.

"I know," her sister acknowledged. "I know." Leviathan herself had envied Phantom, wished she had the newgen's immunity. Even though that would have meant she couldn't run her system, would have had to give up her dream of purifying the oceans, even if being converted into a newgen had been possible. "You…" What was there to say? It wasn't as though being half robot master had made them any less people than reploids were, and Harpuia still had emotions, still… was still her sibling. "Some of your decisions make a little more sense." When the first law meant Harpuia would _have _to favor humans over reploids. "You _wanted _me to think you were irrational about them, didn't you?" About failing them, putting them in danger. "So I wouldn't think you were impartial." Didn't think that Harpuia was fighting for some policies because she actually thought that was best… of his own free will. "You goddamn…" Anger warred with admiration in Leviathan's voice. "Gutsy bi-" No. Harpuia had made their choice. "Bastard."

"How flattering." Except not. "Now. What are we going to do about this?"

Leviathan gave in and pulled up a chair. "Weil said he had to figure out how to use Omega to interface with the leftover 20XX network to get back to the solar system, remember? So that could be an old military installation, but odds are it wasn't an official one." Had belonged to one of Wily's. "That may be what's keeping him busy: he's trying to figure out how to use it." But now he had Zero as well as Zero's body: who knew what difference that would make. "Technically, you're better suited to space operations than I am." _Much _better. "If I didn't know why, I'd ask why you were letting me go instead of heading the strike team yourself." She leaned back. "Hopefully I can hack that, but it can't hack me: best of both worlds. I'll take two with me, see if they can watch my back while I work – I can use them for distractions, if nothing else." Space station tactics were a _bitch_. Even if decently-constructed reploids didn't have to worry about the risks of blowing a hole in the wrong wall. As much.

This was going to be fun. In the 'small chance of not fulfilling at least one defeat condition' sense of the word. Keeping a human alive on a space station? "Let's hope Weil knows how valuable she is." It would give him reason to keep her alive, string them along. He liked his false hope. "Since he probably won't care _that _much that she's his and Arciel's descendant." Weil had plenty of non-naturally-conceived descendants, although lifting the ban on genetic engineering had let the humans start removing him from their gene pool with extreme prejudice. "Especially once she says she'll never join him."

"Are you so sure she will?" Harpuia wondered.

"Yes: she doesn't have the people skills to string him along." She'd tried, when she brought them Copy-X, but she sucked at lying. Her revulsion would be painfully obvious.

Pity.


	31. Skeletal Outlines

_Sometimes I think of Copy-X's relationship with his body as something akin to being an Eva pilot, I swear…_

_Shades of Palpatine/Darth Sidious. 'And then there will be peace.' _

_I think I'm going to have to rechoreograph the rest of the part of the outline that takes place on the space station. There are a couple of brief conversations I want to have & info to be dropped that right now, there isn't a time they can happen in._

* * *

When Copy-X didn't come back dragging a prisoner, it was pretty easy to figure out what had just happened, except then he asked, "Do you have any rope?"

"Actually, I do." She hadn't forgotten to pack _everything_ practical, especially when there was a lot of climbing involved in getting to where Zero was. Where Zero had been.

Copy-X hesitated, but, "A rope wouldn't stop a baby elf, anyway." From forcing someone back to life, in order to use them. No, for Weil to get more use out of them. "Still, could you…" Right, she was working. "Do you mind if I look through your bag and put it somewhere accessible?"

"Sure, I… Hey! I was trying to read that!" What made it really annoying was that even though the pen that man had given her hadn't disappeared when they went into the real world (well, the physical world? Which was realer was unconfirmed), which was evidence he really had gone there physically, with pens, and wasn't a cyber elf, it still wouldn't write on the walls or floors here. The anti-energy weapon coating also seemed to protect them against ink, so she couldn't diagram any of this out. While Standard Notation used words, New Testament involved a _lot_of shorthand made by combining upper and lower case symbols with specific meanings, and the meaning they had combined depended on stuff like the order and the capitalization, according to him. He'd rattled off some of the more important meanings of the letters, but she was going to need to write down several of the combinant terms she did know the meaning of and diagram it out to get a handle on the grammar.

Like, right now, the station was either running a nurse elf effect with a subroutine to recharge solar-powered systems in the area (the way Lark's wings could recharge reploids) or preparing to engulf a large area in energy equivalent to a solar flare. Or something. She was pretty sure it wasn't good, because since 'I' often signified justice/holiness/the correct action in absolute terms (except when it and other vowels were being used for emotional frequency shorthand in instructions to the runtime environment/the person about what to feel) and since she'd pulled up the security system to see what it had tagged _her _with?

'Accursed emotionless/soulless evil lifeform' as a designation for humans, even if only in a specific context (human intruders, in her case), probably wasn't a very good sign for what this system would consider the highest good: healing or destruction. Especially with Weil in charge, although she didn't think the station knew he was.

Of course, she wasn't saying any of this to them, because there wasn't any point in people worrying until she had a plan. Stopping Weil and this place already _was_the plan, so telling him random guesses wouldn't help or change anything.

She'd managed to pull open a notepad program to take notes in, although since she couldn't draw lines in it it was less help, so it was really annoying that all her work had been overridden by some reploid. Although that was a really weird look for a reploid. Andrew, one of the teachers at the crèche, had looked like an old human because of his wife, but if someone was trying to look human, why would they cover a custom head like that with a translucent orange cone? And then there was the whole body structure. Were there retractable legs under there? Hovering around everywhere was a waste of energy.

Aargh, focus! Lower-case C, upper case L, Y and E, lower case Z and another upper-case E. Ok, so while A was power (force applied to a task), Y was energy, defaulting to electromagnetic radiation unless modified. C was change, especially change-over-time or progress (also indicating velocity: acceleration would be cc, then?), but in this case it was serving as a modifier for L, which meant 'someone other than subject of the sentence/person running the program, defaulting to the object of the program/sentence.' Unless this was a function call, like awe_nudo_la had turned out to be.

Honestly, this might run quicker than Standard Notation, because it could get more done in fewer lines, but the need to constantly refer to an external pre-defined function library? It might work for elves or robot masters, but this would be inefficient as the wastes for reploids. More work for the nanites.

So, change to someone else's… Emotional energy, given the presence of the E? Overriding it with divine emotions? Or was this playing by intensity rules instead of regular order rules? She'd been surprised that one of the letters would be labeled with 'god' of all things, except the man had reminded her that Wily had been nuts, everyone knew it, and that she needed to think about the symbolism. An ideogrammatic programming language, though?

Or was 'LYE' one of the combinations with a preset meaning? It was showing up a lot.

Anyway, she definitely had to agree that this language had been invented by someone insane. Three different contradictory grammatical sets? All sorts of special cases and irregularities, worse than the vernacular? Grafting it on to an existing, far more sensical language with its own rule set that this one ignored half the time instead of designing it from the ground up? Backwards compatibility couldn't be the reason, this would need to constantly refer to that external library for translation anyway.

Yes, efficiency boosts were always good, and for elves they'd save lives, but she was clearly going to have to design her own language. Whenever she found the time…

Insane and, and _evil_, because no annotations? No way to put annotations in at all? That was just wrong on so many levels.

Anyone who didn't annotate their code properly clearly had no respect for other people, or themselves. Ciel worked really hard to annotate out her code, and it was hard because other people didn't think the way she did and she didn't want to be insulting by explaining things that were _too_obvious, either. So to see someone just blow off every other programmer, not to mention future users like that?

Wait, no cursing in front of her creation, right. So she limited herself to a, "Grr…" of frustration under her breath.

That made the annoying pop-up that had taken over the screen laugh – it had been talking, but she'd been trying to concentrate.

There, that had done it. Ciel _hated _being laughed at, so now her brain was going to switch gears into that buggy 'dealing with people mode' no matter what she did. "I wasn't grring at you. Get off my screen!" Or she'd do a lot more than growl at him. She wanted that information!

"Is that any way to greet your dear great-grandfather?"

Huh? This really weird reploid was related to her? Well, there was legal adoption and so on, and she wouldn't want to imply that family bonds with reploids were less real, not in front of her creation, but she was kind of busy here so this wasn't the time for reunions with people who could have looked her up before if they gave a damn about the relationship… wait, wait.

Ooooooh.

"Are you Weil?" she asked, just to be sure, because wow. That was just… Oh, right, she wasn't obligated to be polite to evil people. "You look ridiculous."

He stared at her, in a way that indicated he was wondering what she thought she was doing and how he was going to react to it (impressed? Murderous? Both?) so she went on. "I mean, it's kind of embarrassing. Of course, you didn't look like that when the first Dr. Ciel was working with you, so… And anyway, you _aren__'__t _my great-grandfather. Great-Grandma divorced you, and Grandma and Mom _both _had custom-designed babies, Grandma so she didn't pass any of your genes on and Mom because she didn't want me to _get _any of your genes by doing it the normal way, I guess. So I don't have any genes in common with you, except the genes all humans share." There was less than a percentage point difference between the genes of humans and one of the species they'd been related to, or something. It had been awhile since she'd looked up biology because of wanting to learn about her mother. "What, did you think I was going to be surprised? I was hacking into Neo Arcadia's secure files before I was nine, I know my own family history." She normally just tried not to think about that part. Oh, and she shouldn't admit hacking in front of her creation, even though she had before and, well. She wouldn't want him to feel conflicted, since he was a city official. She'd knocked it off after she built him, really! Except for poking around, or trying to, in the machine that had been watching over Zero. And then there was…

Copy-X inwardly winced, because even if Weil might not care about human taboos like inbreeding, when he'd done what he did to the gene pool, telling him they weren't genetically related could _not_be a good thing.

The part of him Phantom had trained was wondering why Weil was addressing them through a camera that could also see a screen behind him, and was trying to read that screen. Although it could be deliberate disinformation? Normally, he'd think that it was better to know what Weil wanted them to think he was working on than not to know, more information better than less, but this was Weil.

"Hmm." He looked past her at Copy-X. "We meet again."

Normally, Copy-X really wasn't at a loss for words all that often, because normally he was pretending to be X, so he would react in character and Master X always knew what to say. Yet, here and now he was only himself, and this was reminding him of when the guardians had told them that they knew he wasn't X and there was no getting out of it. Caught.

"Greeting me in X's place. Greeting _Zero _in X's place – now that is proof, right there." Weil chuckled. "He wouldn't send anyone else, not unless the fate of the world depended on it… No, even if it did." He'd broken X that badly, and it still gave him a little thrill. "He can't have been urgently needed elsewhere, not when he hasn't shown his face. He's let his precious children, the ones he built to spoil and coddle, as though that would make up somehow for all the children he built just to suffer and die, fight Omega alone. Not like him, is it? And you would know, when you pretended to be him as he had been so very well." Those last words were mocking.

The Guardians had been fighting Omega alone? Copy-X's first reaction was to say, "The guardians can take care of themselves," more than a little annoyed on their behalf. Shouldn't Weil know they weren't helpless newbuilts? He'd fought them.

Then he realized that was probably a mistake, when Weil laughed. It wasn't how X would say it, and wasn't X's absence the most important point? It must have seen like he was trying to change the subject, or was admitting that X was gone and trying to reassure Ciel that the guardians could protect the city on their own.

No, banging his head against the wall or putting his face in his hands would _not_help anything, so he just lifted his chin up a bit and met Weil's eyes. He did have to look up in order to look into his eyes, even on the screen. Being so tall like that was just ostentatious, seriously.

"So X _is _dead, then. Because I have Zero. And for X to just leave him here… He wouldn't be capable of that." Yet only the fake had come to the bait. Yes, the thing on the screen behind him did look like Zero's cyberspace form, not that Weil would know they knew that…

Ciel gasped. "That's Zero's cyber-elf form! What did you do to his body?"

…Well, that would be good information to have, if Weil deigned to answer Ciel's question, Copy-X told himself.

Except Weil seemed a little confused, somehow, until he seemed to figure something out, regain his balance. "Ah. You're the one that built that fake: the guardians never would have, even if that meant letting what was left of 'civilization' destroy itself. And in the absence of one real legendary hero, of course you're worried about a second fake body."

Huh? Ciel was a little unsure where to start objecting to that. For one thing, it was mean to call someone a fake, except that kind of was what Copy-X had been built for. Also, "Since when do fake and replacement meant the same thing?" Zero wasn't fake.

"Ah, so you were building a replacement for X? You knew he was dead, and used the opportunity to seize power by putting your fake in his place?"

Weil had _better_not say anything along the lines of 'like great-grandfather, like the person who is totally not his great-granddaughter.' "That wasn't what I was doing at all and… And don't talk like you know me!" She pointed her pen at him, fiercely. "Or him!" Her threatening him really should have been ridiculous, since she was a human, but Weil himself had started out human, hadn't he? And now he was… that.

Copy-X finally noticed, turning to look at Ciel, that three more cyber-elves had arrived and joined Iris. One of them was Passy, but he wasn't sure if the other two were the same other two that had come with them and then gone off somewhere. Their colors and sizes were completely different, although he knew he certainly wasn't an expert on how it worked for reploids. Still, if Passy was with them, he was sure they weren't enemies, even if Passy moved back a little when the larger one came towards them, as though careful to stay out of the way or embarrassed or something.

The smaller one was sticking close to the bigger one, as though worried about getting lost. He remembered trying not to look like he was trailing along behind Harpuia or Phantom like that, when he was learning where everything was.

What was occupying most of his attention, though, was how Ciel didn't seem to have picked up on the most important part of what Weil was saying. He hoped it wasn't selective obliviousness because she couldn't face the idea that X was dead. Both genius and expertise acquired through practice were about knowing what to pay attention to, and it was interesting to watch how Ciel's mind zeroed in on certain things.

It was actually kind of flattering. In the same sentence Weil had said that X was dead and insulted Copy-X, as well as Ciel, and the part her mind had decided to prioritize, to focus on and ignore the rest of it as less important, was, well, the bit with herself in it but also _him_. He was certain that when she had built him, Ciel would have cared far more about news of X's fate, news of the end of the world as they knew it (same thing), than about either of them. She'd put aside her own projects because X was the important thing, after all.

She really had grown up.

He still really hoped she kept being oblivious, because he wasn't sure he could lie to her, not when Weil would help her crack him. Or should he just tell her, so she didn't hear Weil's version first. "X left, to work on something, before you made me. He hasn't come back: that was Phantom… No one's heard from him," he added, and tried not to look away from her gaze.

"So he did take his own life. Can you _imagine_ X just standing by, working on some mythical 'project' when I returned to lay waste to the world?" Weil gloated.

"Well, he might not even know you're back," Ciel pointed out. And imagining someone not paying attention to things because they were working on an important project? Ciel could imagine that as easily as she could imagine breathing: they both happened to _her_every day. "You haven't even got the dark elf back, if the Guardians are beating Omega. So it's not like you're a real problem yet. I mean, if I were him, and I was working on something that important, I wouldn't leave it until I had to, and there's the Guardians and…" And Ciel: she was working to protect Neo Arcadia too, although she wasn't going to list herself alongside the _Guardians_. "And you," she told Copy-X, blushing, because he was her creation, so to say he was that important might sound like she was complimenting herself, when she really shouldn't take credit for it. "I mean, I'm sure Master X would have come back if things had gotten too bad in the city. So, if he can keep working because you… because everyone's doing a good job, then…" Then they should be proud. "Anyway, don't tell lies unless they're believable," she told Weil, trying to regain her mental footing (even though much of her was still thinking about Master X maybe being proud of her, because she'd helped, and trying not to blush). "Master X taking his own life?" No one did that. That was a waste of the lives of all the people who had sacrificed to keep _you _alive. It was _waste_.

She reminded him that, "You're the one that said he wouldn't leave Master Zero alone, right?" Imagine, Zero waking up to find that X was gone, vanished, dead? "And even if he did die somehow…" Ciel shut her mouth. Right, no telling the guy who wants to eternally torture people and used cyber-elves for terrible things that dead reploids become cyber elves and there's a way to get to where they are.

That would be all kinds of bad.

"Even if he did?" he prompted her, and Copy-X wasn't sure what to make of that expression, even after firing up X's own analysis to compensate for how the orange thing was messing with his own attempts to read Weil.

Then she'd bring him back to life, but in the short term, "Don't think that it means that you win. Master X… Everything he did for us, and… The Guardians, and… We're not going to lose." Not when Master X really might be dead, and that meant he might be watching over them from the afterlife too, and he'd be so worried! And if they lost and he blamed himself, well, how could they let that happen? "So you should go back to whatever he-" language, "hole you crawled out of, and hope the Guardians _let_you run. And maybe they will, because immortal or not, and it's _not_," because entropy, even if she wanted to find a way to not so much cheat death as buy a few million years' worth of time, "the only reason no one's found a way to kill you, even _with_those nanites, is that we've had more _important_things to do." Like generators. So she shrugged.

Weil was silent, hovering there like some… actually, Copy-X had no idea what to compare him to. He was just… alien. Wrong. "That arrogance… You remind me of Arciel. And myself, before I realized there was no justice. That what was right, what people wanted, didn't matter."

Ciel was very close to asking him if he was _whining_, but said, "Then you should have made it matter. Isn't that the root of elf technology?" Shouldn't he know this? "If you want justice, if you want things to be right, then you have to work for it." Of course.

He _laughed_, and it made Copy-X realize that most of his other laughs had been, if not fake, then… scripted? That Weil had been playing a role, just like Copy-X had for most of his life. Except Copy-X had been pretending to be the paragon, the compassionate protector, and Weil? Weil had chosen to become the devil. "We are the same… You haven't realized it yet? I _have_. Or I will," he corrected himself, "When this world is mine. There will be _justice_."


	32. Peace and Justice

_This was Ch. 33 when I wrote it, but then I realized that the last line of 31 really should be used as a lead-in to this, instead of leaving it unexplained for another week while I went back to the Guardians._

_I wanted to include a quote from _The Killing Joke _up here (don't own it, either), but the site has a policy about that. Instead, I shall mention that one of Zero's quotes when fighting Captain America in the Japanese version of the new version of MvC3 says that he considers justice itself evil. Which, actually, is technically true. Hurting others, even as punishment or to reduce the net amount of evil, is still an evil thing. So justice itself (as opposed to mercy/forgiveness) would qualify as a necessary evil, it's just that it's such a _vitally _necessary evil, due to the imperfect world we live in, that it's generally percieved as a good thing because the absence of it is such a bad thing. _

* * *

Even now, almost five years after the end of the Maverick Wars (funny that they were calling the day Elpis and X ran that program The Elf War, when no one really died), it still bothered him.

Of course, he knew why it did, and he was definitely not the only one bothered by it. There were people who actually lost family in the Maverick Wars, survivors of attacks, who used to be mostly functional and now _couldn__'__t __go __outside_, because anti-segregation laws were passed and they might run into a reploid.

In his case… Well, their creators wanted to make sure their projects, their highly-illegal genetically engineered geniuses were properly motivated. After all, genius was nothing without motivation. Without passion. Their caretakers had been somewhere between relieved and _furious _to find out around the age of five that what Arciel was interested in, more than anything else, was music. Fortunately, she found composing programs similar enough that it could hold her attention. They'd been more worried about him taking the proper interest in reploid research.

Dr. Cain's original interest had been paleobiology, after all. Botany. Rendering Earth's surface _habitable_, ecological recovery and oxygen levels with the planet reverted to a Mesozoic temperature and ideally atmosphere. He'd started designing reploids after finding X, but he hadn't been as good at it. He'd done it to help X, to help build a workforce that could restore the world, but he'd always hoped that the wars would end, that he could return to his real vocation.

So they'd made sure that their clone (gene-cleaned and kept in secure areas so he wouldn't develop cancer, of course), knew exactly how important it was that the virus be stopped. After all, the world couldn't be restored if Mavericks kept wrecking it.

Giving him a fear of reploids that had qualified as a phobia before he was eight was just another benefit. After all, the mavericks really would be out to get them, just like all the other attempts to find a cure, if they knew about the two of them.

Especially Arciel.

Arciel wasn't afraid of reploids. Arciel wasn't afraid of _anything_. Their caretakers had always been more than a little terrified of her.

It was when they were eight that Arciel had hacked into their keepers' systems and found out why. That was when she'd read both their psychological profiles, and also found out why people seemed _happy _that Weil was having nightmares and told them to knock it off, or she'd spam the world with their little project.

They'd come _very _close to having Arciel killed, after that, but starting over? Losing all that time? Losing him as well, because if they'd taken Arciel away…

He wished Arciel was here, but she was home working on something. If she'd come, she would have brought the little one, and it was hard with her here. Because she didn't know to be afraid of reploids, she'd toddle right up to them and just about give him a heart attack, videos playing behind his eyes of how easy human children were to crush, and…

"Are you alright?" X asked softly.

Even though the voice came from behind him, it didn't make him jump. X's voice sounded exactly like a human's: Dr. Light hadn't cut any corners when it came to making sure X could pass. He wasn't wearing his armor, either, Dr. Weil saw, turning around. That would be why he hadn't heard X come into the room.

No clanking, no sounds of hydraulics, shorter than he was: it was easy to tell himself that X wasn't a reploid, so there was no need to panic. Not that there was a need to panic with any reploid, not _now_.

Well, it wouldn't be a phobia if it was a rational fear, and if it was easy to get rid of, he would have gotten rid of it already. It was still a little embarrassing, for one of the heroes that had saved the world to have to try not to flinch back when a reploid approached.

X was alright, though. X was safe. If the project had been discovered by the mavericks, they'd wanted him to go to X and Commander Signas. Signas bothered him, even though (or especially because?) they were related in this odd way, but X… Reminded him of Arciel, which was incredibly ironic when he thought about it.

"I'll get you some water," X said after a moment more, heading over to the buffet laid out on one side of the conference room. It looked like they both had come in here early, and probably for the same reason: to get away from the crowd.

"Thank you," he said, accepting it. A dry throat was one of those physiological responses.

X sat down next to him carefully, watching him to make sure that it was alright, and that was appreciated, really.

It had to be hard on X, that everyone had expected him to save the world from the moment he woke up. He hadn't asked for any of it, to be born without a family… Not that the two of them were that alike, Weil told himself. It was Aurora Elpis that had done all the work, and even though he'd done most of the engineering, how to keep them stable without using the virus as a base, Arciel was the real genius. Looking at her programs, often enough he felt like the real Dr. Cain, trying to understand Dr. Light's work.

Or himself, trying to analyze Zero's programming… but that edged a little close to something that was quite, quite secret. He didn't think X would hold it against her, not when he'd accepted Zero, but… Or did X already know? He wouldn't be surprised if Arciel had told him herself: that was better than letting him find out later.

"Is there anything I can do?" X asked.

Weil shook his head. "I'll be able to present." Even though there would be other reploids near him, up at the speaker's table. "It was just… the crowd." The mingling, people going up to each other and shaking hands, coming up to _him_. He didn't want them to think that he was a xenophobe, even though he _was_. It wasn't the reploids' fault, and he knew that. It was half the virus and half deliberate conditioning by other humans, it had nothing to do with _them._

"It was like this before the virus," X remembered. "Seeing reploids and humans just talking, just walking past each other on a city street, without being afraid… But a lot of the other maverick hunters find themselves wanting to issue evacuation orders." Tell the humans to _run_, what were they thinking? "Honestly, I didn't think it would happen this fast. The newbuilt reploids, yes, and the children, but the adults? I don't find your reaction surprising at all," X said, smiling sadly. "Or the Avengers." A human movement, trying to kill reploids that had committed crimes before they were cured. Or sometimes, just any reploid would do, when people were angry and grieving enough. "There are people whose _grandparents_ were born after the wars started." Generations that had known nothing but war. "It's not perfect, but that peace has returned like this… Thank you." It wasn't the first time X had said that, but, "Thank you so much. For being here, for trying, as well. I know this is hard. It's hard on so many people. But everyone's… doing as well as I could have hoped for. Better."

It was still surprising that X was so short in real life. His green eyes were warm and understanding, and he was beautiful in the way Arciel was, when she'd promised, "I'll protect you," like it barely even needed to be said. When it had been them against everything they knew about the world (their creators hadn't wanted them to want to go outside).

It was hard not to feel safe, with him here. Just like Arciel. X could kill him as easily as any other reploid – No, eas_ier_. Arciel, well. Yet that was made them feel safe: how was a harmless person supposed to protect anyone?

X was the second most advanced killing machine in the world, designed to resemble a human boy barely into his teens. Armor and the trappings of a warrior made him look older, but wearing a lab coat like this? Up close, he clearly wasn't old enough to shave. And people wondered why Arciel's drafts of a new host body for Zero, one that would offer proper containment while he underwent hibernation in lieu of normal sleep mode, looked so young. She was just making them look the same age.

Partners, and here X was without his.

He'd come to visit while they were working on Zero so many times. Both to suggest what he could and just to see Zero. To place a hand on the glass, smile at that peacefully sleeping face. Sometimes, when no one was in the containment room (but there was always cameras watching over something so dangerous and so precious), he'd leaned against the capsule, spoken a few quiet words to Zero, even knowing that he couldn't hear.

You had to be a fool, to think that reploids weren't just as capable of genuine emotion as humans. You'd have to be paranoid and delusional if you could see that and think it was fake.

That longing, and patience, and quiet strength. That faith, that Zero would eventually manage to purify himself of everything that made him a danger to the world. That Zero would return to him.

It was beautiful.

It was also X that hadn't tried to stop the creation of reploids, when the virus was confirmed to be a virus. Had kept letting children be built to fight it and probably die, the way Weil and Arciel had been made. Using reploid researchers hadn't worked: the virus would take them. Humans trying to study reploids once it became clear they were intelligent enough hadn't worked: they'd be in the general population for years, plenty of time for maverick spies to find them and snuff them out. It was taking your life in your hands not to hide it, if you had an IQ above a certain amount. Grades were never entrusted to any computer system.

But, if you had two children, and you _knew_ they had a very high chance of growing up to be just what was needed…

Weil wasn't sure if X would have tried to shut down the project if he'd known about it. Well, he might have, but it would have been hypocritical of him. It had worked, hadn't it? Although Weil didn't know if… It was hard to feel like he'd done something special, that they had, when this was what they were _for_. It had been demanded of them. If they couldn't do it, then they'd been told they were absolutely worthless. All the effort put into making them, wasted.

The world outside: Arciel loved it, but it was a wasteland. War, war and more war. Humans fighting humans now, because reploids fighting humans? Some of the Avengers were trying to capture elves and force them to die for them. And yet, here they were at this conference, of the people trying to figure out what they were going to do about that, and everyone was acting like they didn't have any fear whatsoever of being murdered or driven to murder.

Apparently war was part of human nature, even without the virus. Reploid nature too: Weil had heard of Dynamo, who had dropped Eurasia for _money_. Money that would have been worthless if the mavericks won because of him, because they were a hive. Everything for Sigma, for humanity's destruction. (For Zero, for… the one who had created the virus. The one who gave Arciel nightmares.)

He found himself saying, "Do you ever…"

"Do I ever what?"

"Do you ever get the feeling that…" he tried to sketch his thoughts out in the air, moving his hands as though reaching to grasp the proper word before settling on. "Something's _wrong_?"

"Ah," X said, as though he'd heard this before, there was nothing odd about it. "Yes. A lot of people… War is all they've known. So peace scares them, it feels unnatural, waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Weil nodded. "Everyone's so nice to us. The heroes." Things had gotten better after Arciel had stood up for them, and then _much _better after they'd been handed over to the government to work on Zero, but still. Because they were genetically modified, and _no _one was taking risks with what was left of the gene pool, they shouldn't have been allowed to have a child. They'd been told they were, well, and now? "It feels… Fake." Everyone was acting so nice because they were happy, but it was so different from how they were when things were tough? This was how heroes were treated, but mostly-helpless children?

X sighed. "That's the price of being a celebrity, I'm afraid. Now that I'm dressing like a human more often, and humans are aware of the possibility that there might be reploids among them, it's much harder to walk around incognito." He was actually getting recognized when he dressed like just an ordinary teenager, the way he hadn't when people thought of him as Commander X, as though his armor was welded to his body like most reploids.

Not that X was a reploid.

"…I did that once. I didn't like it." Crowds? Strangers not giving him three feet of personal space? With reploids mingled in the crowd? And then he'd been recognized and it had just become embarrassing.

"I like it," X said, with a small smile. "I like to see how people live. It was a reminder that, even in the middle of the Maverick Wars, life went on. People tried to help each other." Like asking a boy who looked barely into high school if he was lost. "Sometimes, I'd just find a bench on my day off." It was peaceful. "Well, at least it's still easy enough to go incognito as a reploid. Fake armor, including over my face," he explained, when Weil looked surprised anyone could think X was an ordinary reploid. Normal reploids did _not _have that much facial articulation.

Or eyes that looked so real. Or… the little imperfections.

Even Zero didn't have those.

But that wasn't quite what he was talking about. What he was feeling. This, this wrongness. Worse when he saw a crowd, or Elpis and Fefnir running somewhere and laughing, or… "Do you ever think that it was too easy?" he tried again, knowing as soon as he said it that this wasn't it, either. "All those battles, all those wars, and in the end it's fixed by just running an anti-virus program?"

Well, it had been far from an ordinary anti-virus program. "I knew once we found out what was really going on that fighting the mavericks wasn't going to let us win the war," X told him. "It was a disease, and all we were doing was combating individual outbreaks of symptoms. Killing innocent victims, just like the mavericks were. Fighting fire with fire just means burning the ground yourself, first." Blowing up an area so mavericks couldn't blow up those houses while there were people in them, for example. "It doesn't put out the fire, all it can do is contain it. Fire needs to be fought with water. Or suppressant, or, well." The point was, "Other methods, until we find one that works. And this did." He looked at him quizzically. "Do you really think we could have another outbreak on our hands?"

"Well…" Weil looked around: they couldn't talk about Zero or his containment here. "I don't think that's a serious risk." As long as proper precautions were taken. "But…"

"I don't think it would have felt as anticlimactic to you if you had been the one grounding Aurora. That was… Interesting," X said, although he clearly felt the word was inadequate. "I still don't think my internal clock was off." It really could have been much longer on the inside. They really could have had that little chat with the true mind behind the virus.

"Anticlimactic… Maybe." He leaned back, looking up at the standard institutional dark-metallic-blue ceiling. "There's still some fighting, but…" Was it the peace? The peace itself that felt wrong to him? That gave him this feeling that none of this was right, none of it?

He didn't want to be like those people that were complaining about the amnesty. Claiming that the violence was in reploid nature. It didn't help that the mavericks had claimed a few times, in propaganda, that the virus was human propaganda, an excuse the humans were using to keep reploids down, although obviously that was ridiculous to anyone who had gone outside during the Eurasia incident.

Not that Weil had, of course. He hadn't even been born then. He wasn't sure if his designer had even had the idea yet, or if he'd gotten it after analysis of the decayed (and hence somewhat safer) virus after the Eurasia Incident, after certain data was found in there.

Even after the virus had been cured, people still hated each other, still lied and pretended they didn't, assumed that his fear was racism because normally it _was_, they still… The pettiness, and hypocrisy, and cruelty? He knew they were still there, even if now it was different because he had power and prestige, so they didn't dare. They even had enough pull to keep their creator far away from them, no matter how much he wanted to take credit for what they'd done.

Knowing what people would say, if they found out about Zero and about Arciel? If even heroes were made evil, born evil, then…

Even X. Even X, who clearly adored his children the way they adored little 'Ciel, could build them and send them to die, could let reploids be built when they'd end up irregular or maverick or dead, then…

The world acted like this was a happy ending. Avenger attacks weren't even deliberately hushed up, it was that _no __one __wanted __to __hear __about __them_. Oh, it was so sad, those poor people who couldn't get over it, now for more news of how happy their ending was.

He'd noticed that no one really liked to talk about the fact that he and Arciel were genemod clones. It was just swept under the table, the way X refused to let anyone find out that Zero was a Wilybot. He and Arciel were untouchable now, but in a few years? Little Ciel wouldn't be a hero. There would be limits. The best that could be hoped for was that she'd be banned from normally conceiving, and have to serve as a surrogate mother for someone else's children, like women found to have bad genes. And what genes could be worse than…

Should they have brought her into the world? It had been Arciel's idea, she hadn't wanted to hear his worries and he wanted to believe in that, believe that there wasn't a need to worry, but the more he learned about history, the more he actually _saw _of the world around him, the more he saw that it really wasn't all that different from where they had been kept, at first. It was just better at hiding it.

Reploids, even criminals just like Dynamo, had all been pardoned. No one was really holding the Avengers responsible for what they did. Their creator was almost as much a hero as they were, and no one would dream of blaming X for all the reploids who had died and been taken during the wars, and anyone who blamed him for the humans his children had killed would be considered racist and downright mad.

Just… whitewashing everything. Pretending everything was good, when everything was wrong, wrong, wrong…

"Are you _sure_ you're alright?"

"I'm… No. I don't feel well at all." It wasn't that he was physically ill, but he thought he might get that way.

"Here," X said, and offered him a hand as though it wasn't drenched in blood. "I'll show you where the infirmary is." He could lie down, and if he needed to go home, well.

X led him through the crowd, and everyone made the requisite noises of concern and he wondered who wanted to kill him why. Jealousy? Resentment that the virus hadn't been destroyed sooner? Because he was a human and who knew how many reploids more than half-believed the varied forms of maverick propaganda?

The government was here, and these people had signed off on killing reploids just on the merest _suspicion_. They could say the ends justified the means all they liked, but that didn't undo any of it. Keeping potentially dangerous genes out of the gene pool wouldn't justify Arciel or Ciel being looked at as subhuman, a danger to everyone around them.

"Would you stay with him, Aurora?"

There had been genemodded populations after the Cataclysm, for cancer resistance and so on. Those people, those genes were _gone_. They hadn't been needed anymore, with reploid labor. And now that reploid labor wasn't needed anymore? And there were elves?

"His blood pressure is…"

All of them, all of them, pretending to be good people when the blood on their hands had barely dried and they were already jockeying for petty advantage, preparing to get their hands even dirtier, and… Talking about peace, and justice, and… What part of this was justice? What part of this was what anyone deserved? This world was hell, and had always been hell. And there was no justice, to protect good people or punish bad ones. Everyone just suffered, and made everyone else suffer, because even the most noble of them all, even the being _created _and formed in a way that would _make _him noble and ethical was…

"Is it because he's genemod?"

"He's genemod?"

It was all _wrong_. Everything. None of this was right. Wrong wrong wrong and why were they celebrating, when the people they claimed to care about were still in so much danger, and…

Oh.

Of course.

Now it all made sense. How silly of him.

He'd thought that these people actually cared, about justice, about any of it, when he knew just how hypocritical they were. He'd thought that they cared about hurting people when no one did. Even he and Arciel would have just made another if Aurora died, and if little Ciel was squashed by a reploid? The government would make Arciel have more, hero or no hero. She was a fertile female to _them_. And they'd get away with enforcing it, whatever it took. Just doing their jobs. No consequences. No _justice_.

This world was hell, and the damned were running the asylum. That was inevitable, there wasn't anyone that wasn't evil. Even the paragon was just another monster: there was no god.

So, the only way to make things right, to ensure that the evil were punished, would be to create a-No, to _become _the devil.

Well, that wouldn't be hard at all, would it? Much easier than trying to live in this hell and delude himself that it could become a heaven. That anyone's hands could ever be cleaned, anyone could ever atone for what they'd done, unless there was finally _justice._

"I'm fine."


	33. Ye Shall Know Them

_Does anyone know when the site will have the italics glitch fixed? It is really annoying me._

* * *

Leviathan hummed under her currently-nonexistent breath as she pushed off another panel towards the next one, a nostalgic work song from so long ago, and then decided there was absolutely no reason not to sing, since it wasn't like the other two could hear her unless she sent it over their coms. Honestly, she'd expected that the civilian might have some trouble, but one of the Rekku? One of _Harpuia__'__s _officers not knowing how to move about efficiently in space?

As though Leviathan wasn't already painfully aware of how much they'd had to truncate their training program. Well, given the cost of lifting material into orbit, the Rekku probably wouldn't be able to resume space combat training until whenever they managed to build a new space elevator. There were ruins of the old one, but much better to build a new one than try to salvage that and risk having parts break down on them, wasting all the effort.

It was somewhat amusing to watch them try to dodge all the moving panels, but Leviathan knew that she had better keep an eye on them in case they used up all the air in those packs and couldn't send themselves flying back towards the station. As fun as the obstacle course was, she needed to find a corner or something so she could brace herself while cutting through into the interior of the station so they could see what they were dealing with.

Aww, watching little trainees try to figure out how to move in zero gravity… So cute. It made her want to take low-power potshots at them, but this wasn't actually a training exercise.

* * *

Harpuia was in the upper atmosphere, Leviathan was in space & Phantom was already doing something to try to slow Omega down.

Whatever it was, it no was longer enough to slow Omega down enough. Omega was catching up.

Omega had reached the point, Fefnir judged, where fighting him was starting to become actually _challenging_. If barely. From what Fefnir understood about the technical aspects of it all, this state wouldn't last very long. This state meant Omega's systems had learned enough about Fefnir's moves and strategies to start designing counters, start forcing Fefnir to push his own limits, using new moves, giving Omega more data to work with.

They were both learning how the other fought, and the thing was, Fefnir didn't know much about how to fight with this new body. So there was a limit to his bag of tricks, and since the big white behemoth was starting to adapt to nullify Fefnir's advantages? He was already in shouting distance, and closing _fast_.

Fefnir thought he could _maybe_take him out two or three more times before he'd have to start using elves, and at that point? On top of the risk of Omega hijacking some of those elves for himself, on top of the fact Fefnir would be throwing lives away to buy time?

"_Using __elves __might __help. __It __would __be __a __distraction, __confuse __his __systems. __They__'__d __have __to __try __to __simultaneously __adapt __to __two __different, __very __different, __threats.__" _And, like rock paper scissors, sometimes an adaptation that was an advantage against one threat could be a crippling weakness against a different kind of threat. So, at the very least, Omega's options would be limited: he couldn't do some things, go down some evolutionary paths he could have if he was only dealing with Fefnir.

Well, Aurora would know. She'd had a ringside- No, a trapped-within-the-ring seat for every battle Omega had fought in during the Elf Wars.

Aurora also hadn't been here as the world tried to go back to normal. When elf, human and reploid life became cheap instead of far too expensive for them to be able to afford _not _to throw away, far too much of the time. And now?

He dove perhaps so that he didn't have to compose a reply, letting the weight of this thing send Omega to the ground. Yeah, Omega had time to react, Fefnir had gotten sliced, but Omega was pinned and Aurora could heal the damage.

Stupid to use a tactic like that when he didn't have to, he could have tried to wait for a better opportunity, but it would buy him some time to think.

…Except not. "_What __the __hell?__" _

"_I __don__'__t __know!__" _Omega shouldn't have regenerated that fast! "_That__'__s __not __the __infinite __potential __system!__" _Had Weil found one of the baby elves? _"__I__'__ll __ask __Phantom_." Provided he was still alive, but she didn't let Fefnir hear that thought.

It was easy to find her way back to X's body in an instant, it took only a small twist of will to keep a channel open to Fefnir. The trouble was that Phantom wasn't here. Neither was X. Going to where Phantom was…

…Was out of the question.

As for where Grandfather had said X was?

No, no, _not _the time to panic, not when… Weil… Father…

No, no, _not _the time to freeze, she was not she was not she was not…

Just Fefnir, like dealing with X, except Fefnir hadn't been forced to evolve abilities similar to an elf's in order to counter the virus'. Fefnir couldn't grab her and control her power the way X could – although, honestly, since being grabbed made her panic, Fefnir probably could give her orders and she would obey if he even tried to subdue her. Not that Fefnir would. Unless she was already panicked and it was better than letting her be captured. Fefnir would do it then, if she needed it.

Of course, she could be completely wrong. She might have just been in his mind, but she'd been a little distracted and he wasn't the same big red lug from back then. Well, actually he'd been a short red lug, compared to the reploids of the time, but his voice, his ego… He'd been good at making them think he was taller than he was. She wondered if he'd learned that from X, who had managed to command a military unit and eventually head the world's defense (not counting time spent _de __facto_ heading it) despite being constructed to look fourteen. Short, human and harmless-looking, that had been the idea. _Mostly _harmless, anyway.

None of them were the same as back then.

Alright, so… she supposed she could upgrade Fefnir again, give him a new body? That might help, the trouble was that what did she really know about reploid design or what would work better? Her powers had let her cheat on a lot of it, but… Maybe she could turn the ground under Omega into spikes?

If X was here, he'd tell her that there were things she could do, there always were. Even now, X was doing something, even though that worried her. If Weil realized who he was, if Weil realized what he'd done to X… But this wasn't the time.

She could ask Grandfather for help again. No one knew as much about building people, especially combat designs, as he did. She was certain that he'd only told her that Fefnir was fighting Omega and shown her how to get there, made that suggestion, because it would get her to go away, get out of his hair. Fefnir was a Lightbot, after all. If she told him that Omega was about to kill him, he'd probably say, "Finally!" and make scathing remarks about how Weil had degraded his technology before concluding that at least the infinite potential system had won out over Weil's incompetence and Omega, like Aurora, might not embarrass him _forever_. Unlike Zero and, well, she knew what Grandfather thought about _him_. If Zero hadn't turned himself in to be experimented on, Aurora, crappy knockoff that she was, would never have been made.

Except Grandfather had been kicked out of the place he usually was, and Weil was there now, so she couldn't go there to see if Grandfather had gone back. Wandering cyberspace on her own wasn't safe, not now that her energy levels were starting to recover so quickly, without X to limit them for her. Weil might find her.

He hadn't known about cyberspace before, except as it related to the Eurasia Incident, but Grandfather had said that he must have learned _something _about how to work all of it while he was gone, or else he wouldn't have been able to program Omega to let him access Ar Tonelico and teleport back into low orbit. She'd been surprised that X had destroyed Ar Tonelico, but it made sense: If Weil had been able to program Omega to do things with it no matter what X wanted, the way he and Arciel had programmed her to affect mavericks (and through/with them, Infel Phira)? Not that they'd known about the server.

Infel Phira was relatively powerless (even if not as powerless as she was) without the mavericks. It used the distributed computing model: it was meant to use the power of millions of subordinate units to run _incredibly _powerful programs. Grandfather had even predicted that the warring would destroy the world, or at least make it an unpleasant place to live. Infel Phira, once enough mavericks were built, could rewrite the entire surface of the planet, reformatting it into an ideal state, complete with other life forms.

No humans, of course.

It was a copy X had made of that program, running on what was left of Eurasia's systems in Area Zero, as well as Neo Arcadia's Yggdrasil system that were keeping (and making) those areas habitable. He'd altered it, of course, and it wasn't as powerful. Not when there was only one will powering it and that will? Perhaps X would be more efficient these days at running combat programs, but…

A bitten-off scream drew her attention back to the battle. What?

That was… that was _Genmurei_.

Omega had taken off both of Fefnir's secondary blast weapons (heads, in that form) with one double-slash technique, and was clearly preparing another as Fefnir gritted his teeth and tried to override the error messages and alarms so he could actually get a decent report on what the damage was and what he could still do.

Weil's Omega should not have been able to use Genmurei. It was something Grandfather had coded for whenever Zero came to his senses and decided to kill X or was taken by the virus, whichever came first. It wasn't in the initial base programming because Zero hadn't been designed to use a beam saber. It was also a reality alteration attack, far more blatant than most of Zero's, that wouldn't only render the user invulnerable while they were running the attack program and do enough damage to kill any normal reploid in one hit, but altered reality to give the generated shockwaves the traits _cannot __be __dodged_and _instantly __fatal_.

The copies the virus had made of Zero, the ones that had given the doctors the inspiration to create her, had used a far weaker copy of it, and she'd given Zero the ability to perform it when he was using her power, since she'd found it in the virus' code. But Omega had never been infected, and she hadn't given him a copy of that ability, so, how?

No, it still had to be a weaker version. Fefnir was alive, if only because of one of the elves that had come with him.

But not for very long, if…

She'd better do this fast, before she had a chance to think about what she was about to do.

* * *

Silence.

There had been a few stray gasps of dismay when the Guardian was injured. Surprise when someone had appeared above him and an energy barrier had blocked Omega's strikes as General Fefnir's armor was warped out and, as far as they'd been able to tell through the barrier at the time, his normal body had been teleported back in.

They hadn't known who the new person was: they would have recognized the silhouettes of any of the Guardians. They'd wondered if it was some sort of mechanaloid, a drone detailed to protect Guardian Fefnir, but then they saw that the reason this person seemed to have a large base instead of legs was that he wore a robe.

A blue robe.

Master X.

Omega was roaring with frustration, striking that shield again and again, but Master X just stood there, his hand raised and green eyes flashing with determination, as General Fefnir, Guardian Fefnir, the Master's _son_ got to his feet.

Of course. Of course he would come when they needed him, of course he would never let Omega kill one of the Guardians, much less get past him to reach Neo Arcadia.

It made Falcon feel a little silly, really. That he'd been worried for the General. Sheesh, he should have known better than that. He'd _seen _Master X, unlike most people. Even _met _him, been thanked personally for that business with the caravan in the Wastes. That kind smile, so grateful to him for having saved his people but, at the same time… What? Unsurprised? Like he could see that Falcon was that sort of person, like he knew Falcon was the kind of reploid that would fight, that would _win_ even though honestly, Falcon had been running on desperation on the time and had only refrained from cursing his broken weapon the entire damn time he was fighting because he hadn't had the energy to spare for it.

Proud of him, but… believing in him, that he'd do his best. That his best would be good enough. That Falcon was someone to be proud of, to be respected, even though he was just an ordinary reploid and Master X was _Master__X._

He knew he shouldn't relax: there was still a war on, and even Master X hadn't beaten Omega alone, not and made him _stay _down.

It was still a little hard not to. Not to feel like there was no longer any emergency, that they would win and it was just a matter of mopping up, finding a dumpster to toss Omega in, because Master X was here. Had finally taken the field.

* * *

"Dad? Where the hell have you…"

"It's me," Aurora interrupted Fefnir quickly and apologetically, biting her lip. "I needed a body." This one, so Weil wouldn't sense her as easily: this was still X's body, even if his consciousness was elsewhere. Still a part of him. "I can't do much more than this," she said, and instantly felt guilty because this wasn't her lip to bite: she'd only been in this body for a few seconds and she'd already injured it. "It's easy to focus on wanting Omega away from me." Easy to run the shield program (_Was __yant __ga: _Extremely terrified and praying it will be over soon, I…), oh so very easy.

Maybe she could try to push him back? Thinking of that, she made the mistake of raising her eyes, looking up at Omega's face (or at least, the face of this shell, perhaps the true face of the beast).

She froze for a moment. The shield remained up (_Rrha __yant __wa_: In a terrified trance that may last forever, I…) but if she hadn't been locked out of vocal control suddenly, the body would have screamed with her.

"_What __are __you __thinking?__" _Phantom demanded angrily. "_Do __you __know __what __it __would __mean __if __the __people __of __Neo __Arcadia __saw__ '__Master __X__' _scream in terror_? __If __they __saw __him __wounded, __saw __him _lose_?__" _What the _hell _had she been playing at? If he hadn't been watching through Omega's eyes, trying to pick his moment to interfere, she could have ruined everything!

"_Sorry_," was all she could say, "_Sorry_, _sorrysorry_" because she couldn't even think to say that she hadn't thought of another way and Fefnir might have died and… But that wouldn't have mattered to Fefnir, anyway.

"_Do __you __know _anything _about __physical __combat?__" _Phantom went on, before he managed to get control of his _own_panic and feel bad about making someone far more traumatized than he was curl up into a ball. Some reward that was for her finding the strength to help, or at least try to help, instead of staying curled up into that ball from the beginning. "_Never__mind_." Let's see, the code should be located somewhere around where the summons program for Phantom's armed phenomenon form was… Ah, there. It was in the vernacular? That was strange, although now that he thought about it, this system would have been set up in the Hunter days, before they really understood much of X's programming. It had been such a hassle for them to get _anything _to be compatible with him, forget new armors. If they hadn't had a source of replacement parts… But Grandfather had made duplicates of a few of the armors before, well, before, so X must have just kept using the codes he'd used the first time he'd had them to summon them. "_Just __keep __the __shield __up __a __little __longer_," Phantom told her, as what had been dubbed the ninja armor materialized around him.

His structural design had been based on this armor and its capabilities. He'd impersonated X during the Second Elf War, on the battlefield as well as off. "Alright."

"Phantom?"

"…How did you know this was me?" Phantom asked, startled and beginning to feel a little depressed. Had he gotten _this _damn rusty, that Fefnir had needed only a second to spot him when he was trying to pretend to be X?

"Well, you're not Dad and Aurora wouldn't know that stance." So, since Aurora wouldn't let some random person screw around in Dad's body and Phantom was supposed to be in the general area doing something with Omega, who else would it be? "If you were something Weil sent, you would have attacked already."

"I meant, how did you know I wasn't Dad?"

"Dad wouldn't have just said, 'Alright' like he was _eager _to get to the fighting_,__"_ at his worst, he'd considered it a pain in the ass and would have frowned, sick of these idiots making him kill them, like he didn't have better things to do with his time than blow them up. "And he would have picked something else. Come on, the _ninja _armor?" As opposed to something that could fly, or lay down more firepower? Fefnir knew his own brother when he was that obvious.

Phantom sighed. "I am so, so rusty." Dammit.

"You're telling me." When Fefnir was the one who had just managed to get to his feet. "I'm going to switch to regular armed phenomenon mode. Do you want to keep him off me while I throw around some firepower or do you want me to keep him pinned down while you slice at him?"

Phantom started charging his borrowed buster. "Let's just play it by ear."

Fefnir grinned, checking to make sure that his babies-Ahem, his cannons were okay, even though the dragon-head versions of them had gotten sliced. "Just charge in and make with the violence?" Fefnir had proposed some actual planning, and that was Phantom's response? "Are you sick or something?"

"If I wasn't pretending to be Master X, I would throw a kunai at you for that," Phantom said, trying to be something akin to normal and failing.

"Rough couple days?"

"Very. While I'm busy fighting Omega, you manage to lose Commander Zero, Dr. Ciel and the kid." Maybe, if he kicked their asses for that, Fefnir and Harpuia would be too distracted to realize what a suicidal plan he'd put together and kick his ass for it.

"How'd you find out about that?" Fefnir wondered. Phantom was Phantom, but his unconscious body hadn't been hooked up to anything in the shielded capsule.

"Omega saw them. Two of them." Little Lark and Zero. If Weil had captured both the killing machine and Zero, then what were the odds the kid and the human had escaped?" "And you just told me."

"That trick was old when you were built, Phantom."

"And yet it still works." 'X' eyed the shield carefully. He doubted X's buster would work through it. "On three?"

* * *

_Yes, by the way, it was Copy-X that gave Falcon/Faucon his medal and so on in this universe, not the original X._


	34. All Those Loved

_Oh, yes: Harpuia can choose the good of the majority over the minority (since he's aware that sometimes, no matter what, people are going to get hurt, it would be stupid to put a version of the law in that wouldn't consider that), which is why he doesn't have a problem with Ciel being executed in the first chapter: confirmation that the rule of law extends to humans equally would make the human population safer, and if what she did had been revealed, people would have tried to kill her anyway, for various reasons including blasphemy. What she did was a direct threat to humanity's survival, since if she'd destabilized Neo Arcadia/canon had happened?_

* * *

As it turned out, Leviathan didn't need to make herself a door: someone else already had.

The edges were growing inwards even as she watched, even if pretty slowly. So this station had nanite self-repair capability? This was just too slow, though. It must rely on drones (robots or mechanaloids?) to do serious repair work (as opposed to fixing dents) and move materials into place.

The flying panels explained why no drones had been sent out. This was some serious renovation work going on. Leviathan focused on her internal com, still surprised that it was actually _working_. Yes, leaving the communications channel open would let the station's admin monitor communications (encryptions? Robot masters treated encryptions like _crossword __puzzles_), but there was such a thing as code words, and the ability to get situation reports and coordinate her troops? Of course, there was no substitute for the judgment of the units in the field, for soldiers who knew what they were doing. Even Harpuia knew that too much oversight would strangle initiative, that there was no substitute for firsthand information, for actually being there.

She still wouldn't have used that com to tell those two to, "Come over here," if it weren't for the fact that only an idiot would design a space station that didn't monitor itself. A space station that didn't monitor itself couldn't _repair _itself, couldn't tell when it took damage and fix it. Especially if this station had been built by Dr. Wily, it already knew they were here. The question was if whoever else was here knew that. Of course, it was possible that no one was here, that the lights were on and no one was home. They'd assumed the teleports were triggered by Weil, because the smart money was generally on Murphey, but what if Zero had recovered some ancient memory files and used this place to get the four of them away from those snakes?

Lieutenant Commander Elpis pointed at the hole, after using her beam saber to anchor herself to the station. They were getting in that way?

Leviathan nodded, but looked past her: they were going to wait for Craft. She knew humans did it all the time, but naming people after other people? Just seemed confusing. She could have called this one Elpis Jr., except they weren't related and Junior was used for boys. Elpis II? Or she could call Aurora Elpis just Aurora and this one Elpis, but it was Aurora's name first.

Well, Elpis for now. If she needed to give orders in a hurry, titles were unwieldy. That was part of why the Maverick Hunters had called practically everyone either 'Commander' or 'Lieutenant' in the field, even though there was a large variety of Commanders, from Supreme Commander Signas & the two most senior commanders to some poor sap who had just been built and assigned to command, which was essentially staking them out for the virus since mavericks made an effort to target officers.

When Craft arrived, Leviathan and Elpis were having the exact opposite of the kind of nonverbal exchange that ended up with humans getting temporarily stuck in halls, when two going in opposite directions ended up in front of each other. 'I'll get out of your way.' 'No, I'll get out of your way.' 'No, really, I'll get out of yours,' that ended up taking longer the more of a hurry they were in and the more they wanted to just cut the conversation short/avoid having a little status battle by just yielding and getting out of the way quickly. And obviously no one wanted to back up, since that was ridiculous. And then they'd both twitch, starting to move to the side and then aborting it when the other persons started to move to the side at the same time. Most humans in Neo Arcadia looked down at their feet when they walked, Craft had noticed, and not just to avoid tripping over things. Those exchanges always took a lot longer when the two humans made eye contact, because then they had even more data to go on when trying to analyze each other, and there would be eye-twitches and all sorts of arcane things that would make the reploids stop and gawk.

Reploids were just told that when this happened, they should always move to _their __own _right. A simple, low-tech solution.

Still, in this case what they were arguing about was, 'No, it's dangerous: I should go in first.' General Leviathan thought this because she was a Guardian, obviously, and probably knew a few hundred times more about this kind of boarding action than they did. Lt. Commander Elpis was insisting because General Leviathan was a _Guardian_, and thus not expendable. I.D. spikes and other booby traps could happen to anyone.

If they'd been on earth and Neige had been here with that bag of hers, he would have suggested they borrow Neige's antique zenny coin and flip it. Sometimes it was humans who had the simple, low-tech ideas. The longer they just stood here, the longer whoever was running this place would have to get their guys in position. Flipping a coin in space probably wouldn't work anyway.

Still, there was an obvious solution: edge up, nice and easy, just looking like he was waiting for them like a good new recruit, and then grab the rim of the hole and pull/push on that to flip himself in.

The two of them quickly followed him, and the Rekku officer opened her mouth, probably to ask him what the hell he was thinking. Except no air, so Craft just grinned.

And then stopped grinning, fast, when General Leviathan grabbed the front of his jacket armor and pulled him until his eyes were just a couple inches from hers. Ice-blue, and apparently being a Guardian gave you the ability to speak into people's heads without a com, because she was just _looking _at him, and it was like he could hear her thoughts as his legs dangled helplessly in midair, the Guardian's firmly attached to what might be the floor.

'That was cute. Real cute. You have some balls, newbuilt. And that's the only reason I'm not _running __you __through __and __leaving __you __here_. This is not playtime and if I think you're going to keep doing stunts like that and will get yourself killed, _I __will __shoot __you __myself_." Better than getting caught by Weil, after all. 'I am goddamn General Leviathan and you haven't even been through bootcamp, which makes you lower than the scrap metal my sergeants scrape off their dash boots, got me? You were damn well aware that two _superior __officers_ weren't sure who should go in first yet, and you damn well knew we wouldn't have picked you. I will not tolerate insubordination, got that, punk?'

It was when he looked apologetic and lowered his eyes ('Yes, ma'am, I'll be good.') that she loosened her grip.

She still didn't let him go, though. "Be careful as you go through each of those," she told them through her com, hauling Craft though a round opening that looked like it could close, sealing air in. "We might reach a section with artificial gravity before we reach a section with air."

It wasn't long before they found an airlock. With a panel next to it that had been opened. Since Leviathan seriously doubted that the maintenance crew here had just left wires hanging out in vacuum, this was evidence that whoever had carved that hole in wasn't whoever was running this place. Holes would repair themselves, but damaging the security system of somewhere you planned to use as a base through failing to clean up after yourself was just too stupid. "Cover me," she told the other two, planting her feet and one arm to brace herself so that she could examine the panel. It was easy to figure out what they'd done to open it, even without hooking into the system. She opened one side of the airlock, caught Elpis' gaze and pointed her at it. The airlock was thin, only the width of the station's standard panels. Craft would have had trouble if he was any stouter. A hollow panel, where the walls on each side could iris open and shut: clever, since they'd serve to rapidly seal off areas. And a cargo airlock could be made by putting a section of hall in between two of them, and flooding that with air. The station probably had panels like this that were solid, with just one thick iris-door, as blast walls. Clever, since this place was modular and was designed to reassemble itself into different shapes like that.

Like the building block toys X had hoped at least one of them might be interested in.

She nodded, since sending, 'Yes sir' would have been unnecessary radio chatter, and went through.

Alright, close the near side behind her, open the far side for her to go through by closing the other circuit… And this was probably as good a place to dip her toes into this station's systems as any, Leviathan decided. It was already damaged, after all.

The security cameras were almost ridiculously easy to access: she was bombarded with alerts as soon as she was plugged in.

There was a Lightbot on the station! And the sysadmin wasn't responding!

Of course, Copy-X was only a Lightbot by adoption, and the system had just given itself over to an actual Lightbot, but Leviathan had no intention of letting it figure that out.

Let's see: the kid was there, with Ciel and a few cyber-elves. Weil was at the core with a dead reploid. There were a few other reploids about. Which were the people who had carved that hole in the station?

Ah, Lark, and…

If Leviathan had just been a reploid, if she'd just been watching security camera footage instead of tapping into the system's assessments and data overlays, she would have picked up her spear and vowed to kill Weil. Next.

Instead, she came very close to squeeing.

* * *

"General Leviathan?" Elpis asked, once the airlock finally closed between the two of them and the air stopped whooshing out. She'd thought they were trying to be quiet, or as quiet as reploids could be in metal corridors? Opening this area to space to fling herself and Private Craft through?

"Follow me!" General Leviathan called, sprinting ahead of the two of them. "And don't shoot: friendlies!"

The two of them followed her, tracking her by the clangs of her footsteps. She was already out of sight, and from ahead of them they heard a soft cry of surprise and a crash.

Elpis skidded to a halt and just stared.

The Four Guardians were the defenders of Neo Arcadia, second to Master X himself. His children, shining beacons of the heights that the reploid race could aspire to. Their wisdom, their heroism, their grace and beauty…

Even if General Harpuia did have a stick up his ass, he'd had a point. She couldn't just half-ass things, decide that something sounded cool without actually being willing to work to _understand _it.

Elpis winced, wishing she hadn't thought of the word _ass_. Originally, like most reploids, she hadn't paid a lot of attention to the relative aesthetic qualities of human-style proportions, but she'd had to do a lot of research because remodels were incredibly expensive, even for officers.

The crash had been General Leviathan _jumping __on __top __of _another female model reploid. A very curvy one. Elpis wondered how she'd managed to find colors of pink and green that didn't clash. Maybe the black under armor helped? And where had she gotten that hair? Elpis wished hers would roll up like that when she wanted it out of the way, it must be so convenient.

"Uncle Axl! I missed you!"

Wait. Uncle?

Yes, that was definitely a female model. What were those chest compartments made out of, anyway? Were they even compartments? They looked, well, squishy. Elpis could see that one was somewhat compressed by Leviathan's arms: that hug looked tight.

"Phantom's going to be so happy, I don't believe it! Oh, right, Weil was there, so you woke up to kick his ass, right?" Leviathan said happily, not pausing for breath at all.

Lark gasped. "Snow Fairy? What are you doing here?"

Snow Fairy? Elpis and Craft wondered.

Leviathan was also surprised, looking up at her, then back down at 'Axl.' "You told her my nickname? I mean, she looks like Aunt Cinnamon, but…"

"And I thought you were going to shoot me when I saw you." 'Axl' sounded surprised.

"The system here noted your registry, so when I tapped into it…" She'd seen it.

DWN Infinity-1: Axl

Uncle Axl.

Not that she would say that in front of three people who didn't know about the whole long story. Not that Leviathan knew the long story. She hadn't even known the newgens had been invented by Wily's ghost until Phantom had told her, trying to explain why he thought he actually had a chance at taking Omega and why she should help him with what had seemed like an insane plan (and not the fun kind of insane) until he filled her in.

"Axl isn't awake," Lark said sadly. "We tried to wake him up, even… Another elf couldn't wake him up, either."

Alright, _now _Leviathan grabbed her spear and quickly flipped her grip on it, holding it near the tip and the tip to the throat of the female model under her. "Then who are you and why are you wearing Marino's form?" She didn't have to ask how they'd taken Marino's form: it was a very nice form, so it was pretty obvious why Axl had his wife's configuration stored in his systems. She was sure Cinnamon's was in there too.

She'd assumed Axl had taken that form so Marino would… be there, in some way, when he attacked Weil. When he took vengeance for her.

So Weil would know why he was being repeatedly shot to pieces.

"I thought you liked ghost stories," her prisoner quipped, more fond than afraid. Glad to see her, too?

"Vengeance from beyond the grave is a nice idea." But reality was a bitch. "If you can't give me one reason to believe you're the real Marino," Leviathan started to say, and found herself remembering the day Copy-X had been dropped into their laps.

"How about this?" she said, holding something up to Leviathan, clasped between her thumb and forefinger. "I would have gone for your wallet, but you redesigned your armor: there's no space free for conventional pockets," and she was good at spotting such things, "but this looked important."

Leviathan stared at her ID card. It wasn't a credit card. X had told them to let people use energy crystals in place of zenny, when the practice started up, because having something besides rations, seeing immediate results of their labor in their own lives instead of just toiling for the good of the city would give people who were tired, and had little faith in the stability of governments and their ability to protect them, something to labor for.

The Guardians didn't draw salaries. The Guardians didn't have their energy expenditures tracked, although Harpuia tracked his own and even penalized himself for overdrafts because the idea of 'special privileges' or 'more equal than others' was not something he'd tolerate in himself. Especially because Neo Arcadia technically _was _a totalitarian dictatorship, and if the Guardians started thinking that kind of thing was okay, then their immediate underlings might start trying to take advantage of their own positions to get goodies for themselves and their friends and families (if they were human and had families) and then they'd have had riots on their hands, especially in the early days.

About a third the job of the Zan'ei's Investigations Unit was watching for abuses of power, hoarding and officials taking bribes. Phantom tended to let Harpuia handle the arrest of high-profile cases, because it there was one thing good Harpuia was good at, it was coming down on people like the wrath of fucking God.

So, unlike most people, Leviathan's ID card was not something of a credit card.

It was a carte blanche.

Master X and the other Guardians were the only people who could overrule any decision she made. If Leviathan gave someone that card, it would mean that she was deputizing them to act in her name. No one would counterfeit it, and everyone would assume no one would steal it: who would be that stupid, when Leviathan's name carried such weight?

Slide that into a terminal, and she could order a populated building to self-destruct. She could order mechanaloids to invade the granaries and carry off their foodstock.

Someone with that card could do an incredible amount of damage, if they weren't stopped in time.

She really shouldn't have brought it with her. Especially right now, when X was AWOL, Copy-X was here, Phantom was in Omega, Fefnir was fighting Omega & Harpuia was in the stratosphere. No one with the authority was in a position to show up in person to contradict 'her' orders.

And someone had just removed it from...

"Don't worry, I didn't cut through any of your hair," not-Axl reassured her as Leviathan's hand reached up behind her head. "I have to get stuff out of mine all the time."

Only someone who knew Marino would use pickpocketing as a means of identification. Only someone who didn't know Neo Arcadian law or construction would have gone for her hair instead of looking for a body slot or giving up after checking out her armor. The thing was, it wasn't Marino that had told Leviathan that trick, but Phantom. He'd said that Marino had taught it to him, though, since most people would assume a reploid's hair was solid if it felt solid, but if it was made up of strands that could be bent to hold things in place, it made an excellent place to hide small valuables and equipment.

But the real Marino wouldn't know that Phantom had told her this. This would be a show of skill, like her wallet, that time…

And she was just holding up the card, like she didn't have any idea what it was, but it was what she had found.

Leviathan took it with her left hand, snapped it in two with a twitch of her thumb, and then flung her arms around her again. (Her right was still holding the spear, but with the head angled so no one got stabbed.)

She had _no_ idea how this worked (might be Zero's doing, since the virus could bring people back, could even be Axl's since it was his body), but it was _awesome_.

* * *

_A certain aspect of Marino's character design... Well, it's Capcom. Why let the fact that they're robots get in the way of fanservice? Of course, I wouldn't put it past Marino to have those just for the sake of the WTF factor. Still, while some humans would be staring at her chest due to sexual attraction, most reploids would be staring in bewilderment. Which means they aren't paying attention to the master thief's hands, which would be a rather expensive mistake..._

_If you don't mind a bit of the muses babbling, with possible TMI:_

_Axlmuse seems to find the bouncing head-tiltingly kinky. He has just blushed and said that Zeromuse has no right to comment, while inwardly wondering for a moment if there's anything X likes and then stopping that thought because the idea of X having sex is, well, like thinking of parents having sex (father of the reploid race, even if Axl isn't a reploid, after all). _

_Xmuse has coughed and implied that Leviathan came by her thing for long hair honestly, although aside from that he doesn't know if he has a 'type' because he didn't really get much chance to date, between everyone dying and professional relationships. Also the feeling that a relationship with any reploid would be wrong, due to responsibility to his children (they exist because of him), on top of the age and power differential. That basically left humans and Zero, and it would be very easy for X to kill a human if he, ahem, wasn't paying attention for some reason like, oh, a sensory overload... _

_And now Xmuse is wondering about the fact that while he prefers humanoid reploids, he's honestly never been attracted to a human in that way. Never really occurred to him. Zeromuse's opinion is that of course it didn't, X never thought about that in general. Xmuse thinks it's the power differential: he'd want a partner, someone who would have his back, not someone he'd be expected to protect. He has too many dependants as it is. Of course, when one is centuries-old Lost Technology that has already developed reality warping abilities and will just keep growing stronger, evolving into something greater, equals are thin on the ground. _


	35. Golden Boys & Girls

_Memes vs. eldritch abominations… Never mind me, I like weird thoughts. Still, Cthulhu is relatively easy to kill - the Great Old Ones are just as powerless and insignificant in the face of the universe as we humans are, no matter how terrifying (or not) they are to us. If it bleeds, you can kill it. Unless it's an airborne pathogen and shooting the host just helps it spread, of course._

_I probably shouldn't shift POV as much as I do in this chapter, especially when it's different degrees of third-person limited, aka the 'over the shoulder' perspective. If things don't make sense, well, one person doesn't want them to and the other main person is currently made of snips, snails & WTF. I do hope it's still entertaining?_

* * *

Ciel, Copy-X and three of the cyber-elves just sort of… stared. Ciel and Copy-X's heads tilted to the side at the same time, as though hoping what Weil had just said might make more sense if looked at from a different angle. It didn't. Or rather, it kind of _did_, they thought they might be able to make out a sort of outline, but it still didn't make sense.

Watching them, the other cyber-elf could make out the moment when Ciel's brow furrowed and both of them decided that they didn't want to understand, really they didn't, because that might involve having the kind of mind that could understand a concept like that and what if insanity was catching?

They were right to be worried that too much time around monsters, around the kind of mind that didn't see anything wrong with violence and death, could destroy a person.

Still, innocence let inherent curiosity (in Ciel's case) and a need to understand what made people do things like this (in the Copy's case) override basic self-preservation. Because even if being able to think like the enemy made it easier to defeat them, if either of them was ever to think like Weil, to be able to understand what drove someone to do things like this?

No, it would take more than just a logical understanding of Weil's illogic to do that, he knew. It would take loss, and fear, and madness.

These two had grown up in a sane world, where a reploid going insane was a rare, bad, sad thing instead of a terrifying inevitability. Where murders were shocking. They couldn't understand the protective numbness of not-feeling that came when the horrible came so often as to seem normal. When humans hadn't really been afraid of maverick attack, not as such, because all fear at root was a fear of the unknown and slaughter had become something very familiar.

The world had lived in _dread_, not fear. Fear required hope, the possibility that what was feared might not come to pass. Dread was knowledge of the inevitable, and with dread, like with grief, could come acceptance.

The world had accepted that the struggle against the mavericks was the way things were. It had let them keep fighting, let them handle it. Let them cope. Let them function. To think that violence, madness and the deaths of innocents were the way of the world.

So they hadn't _wanted_ hope. Because hearing someone talk of peace, of an end to the wars, gave them hope and hope brought fear and despair, when that hope was crushed.

To people who accepted a world like that, the idea of peace was madness. Weil was far from the only one who had wanted a return to sanity. So many had rallied to his banner...

It was Lark that answered him first, even if her answer came not with words but with diving towards the screen. She wasn't sure how to travel through a system, but Weil had to die, so she'd figure it out.

Once again, he pulled her back.

Although Copy-X's systems registered the movement of the cyber-elves (out of the corner of his eye, a human would say), he personally didn't. What Weil had said, implying that the world he was trying to create was justice?

There was so much _wrong _with that Copy-X didn't know what to say, what to think, or how to feel about it. He just couldn't frame the idea, it was so far outside everything he thought about how to run a world right, which he thought about a lot. It was just… wasn't looking after people the point? How could you think that making people live in hell was looking after them? Was right? It wasn't even _wrong_, because if something was a wrong answer than it was still and answer, and an answer had the possibility of being right. It was like… like adding up what the generators could be relied on to produce tomorrow and subtracting the absolutely necessary things they needed to use that power for and getting magenta. It wasn't even ridiculous, it was just…

It was like death, Copy-X realized. Killing that reploid just now: that was the only thing Copy-X could think of that was like Weil. He didn't, he _couldn__'__t_ know what to feel about either of these things. They were something… No.

They were nothing. An absence. Emptyness. Killing a person, when he was supposed to keep them safe. Ruining a world, making it a hell, when he was supposed to fix it, make it a better place for Ciel and everyone.

Anathema.

Mostly he used his internal dictionary to look up the old words the guardians used sometimes, but it felt right, to use a word that he never would have used for anything else. An old, dead word that really wasn't a word anyone used in Neo Arcadia, in his city.

He hadn't really been afraid of Weil before, he realized. He'd been afraid that he might mess up, that he might fail. That Ciel would be killed or Neo Arcadia conquered. He hadn't been afraid for his own sake.

But now he felt aware at the core of him what Weil was madness, Weil was _death_, and had already seen past X's face, the armor he wore. Would try to reach into him and twist him, the way Weil wanted to twist _everything_.

Poison and madness and death: he felt suddenly nauseous and knew it wasn't a sensation but a memory, and not even one of his own memories. The body's memories, of something like Weil. Of being close to something like Weil, something that corrupted all it touched. That tried to crawl into his systems and…

They'd called Weil's supporters mavericks, hadn't they? Even though the virus had been cured. Even the _humans_. Most of the reploids had been controlled by the dark elves, and that was almost the same thing, but this kind of sickness, that got into people's heads, made them into dark copies of someone else, into mad killers…

X and Weil had been fighting for the soul of the world, Fefnir had said, and Copy-X had thought he was just being poetic. All the guardians were sometimes, even Fefnir, because they'd had lots of time to think of exactly how to put things. Lots of time to think things over.

But there was Neo Arcadia, and family, and building, and looking after other people, and trying to make there be enough even when there wasn't, and then there was… this, that stared them in the face and _smiled_, because it saw the looks on their faces and was happy, because thinking of death and twisted justice was a good thing to him. It.

People used the word it for things, and they'd said not to dehumanize the enemy but it was tempting, so tempting, because he didn't want to think a person could possibly be like that. That this was just some _thing_, like the virus, something that crawled into people's heads, something that could be killed, destroyed, with the right weapon.

"No," said Ciel, finally. Just, just no. No. She could have demanded to know how was hell on earth _justice_, but that would have been asking a question, seriously entertaining, even for a moment, that there was any logic, however warped, behind what Weil had said. That it was seriously worth considering.

Even if Weil was _right_, which he wasn't, it wouldn't have been worth considering. She was a scientist: they were supposed to face reality no matter how little they liked it, no matter how much it clashed with what they believed, but not this time, either. Death was also reality, also inevitability. She hadn't liked it when Passy died, but that was what cyber-elves did, and she'd known that. It didn't mean she had to like it. It didn't mean she had to accept it. It didn't mean she wouldn't have spent the rest of her life, except time spent on generators and other ways to save lives, trying to change it, make things so cyber-elves didn't have to sacrifice themselves like that.

That man finding Passy hadn't been a sign from on high, but it had been _a_sign. Passy had still been out there, and what if Ciel hadn't ever found that out? Because of doing the sensible thing and not looking, accepting that dead was dead?

"Get off my screen," she added, wishing she had a lab coat so she had sleeves to roll up.

Everyone but the largest cyber-elf was too busy watching Ciel try to stare down Weil to notice words in among the sounds of the station, the oddly-echoing metal-on-metal. "It's not that I don't agree with you, I mean, I'm worried about Phantom too, but the best defense _is_a good offense. I could have gone ahead and…"

"No!" Lark's voice got everyone's attention. "You _aren__'__t _going to fight him alone!" Absolutely not! Not after what happened! "I couldn't help you!" There hadn't been anything she could _do_, when Marino was captured, and Axl…

"I'm sorry…" Cinnamon had _watched_ that?

Another reploid cleared her throat. "We could…"

"No," snapped another familiar voice. Copy-X instantly turned around, straightening, eyes bright. "Regroup first, _then_ Weil." Not that she was allowing rookies like these two anywhere near Weil.

The larger cyber-elf dropped a few inches, in a way that somehow suggested someone lowering their head to their desk. It darted towards the screen the way the smaller cyber-elf had: it flared blue-white and when Copy-X turned around, it was displaying what it had been before Weil showed up.

The smaller cyber-elf dashed into the screen, then out again, hovering and darting around in panic. Oh no! Where had he gone? How was she supposed to get back in her body? Not that she minded,

"Leviathan?" Copy-X called, relieved but still forming his buster, just in case. Well, even if she was Leviathan, he'd still need to have his buster formed, because otherwise she'd yell at him.

"Present," she said cheerfully, a moment before appearing around a corner. Copy-X relaxed: that word wasn't an all-clear, but it was one of the recognition signs, so he formed his buster back into his arm. "I brought two more and…" she paused, while the others caught up with her.

"Guardian Leviathan." Ciel bowed, looking embarrassed. "Lark! Are you okay?" And where was Zero?

"Um, actually…"

Leviathan was muttering to herself. "If I'm your aunt, and they're mine… but they're Phantom's… Oh, whatever." She shrugged and looked at Copy-X again, "Kid, I'd like you to meet your great-aunts, Marino and Cinnamon. They're vengeful ghosts." She laughed. "See? He's got this adorable little 'Huh?' expression."

The two she had indicated also laughed, neither of them unkindly. The green-haired one laughed louder, grinning, and the other one laughed quietly yet brightly, raising her hand to cover her mouth.

The other one, "Isn't that… Lieutenant Lark?" Would she be alright, Copy-X wondered.

"That's me," the smallest cyber-elf said apologetically. "He asked me to, so I let, um, Lady Cinnamon have my body."

This did not lower Copy-X's level of confusion, not at all.

"We can do that," Iris explained as Cinnamon told her Lark that she didn't need to use a title. "Regular cyber-elves can't, they don't have the programming to control a reploid body. Only a baby elf could force out a personality that didn't want to move, though."

Okay, that helped a little more, as well as being a bit of a relief.

Leviathan seemed to disagree: had she been hoping that one of them could possess Weil? Deprive him of that immortal body?

Now that he thought about it, why was Weil immortal, anyway? If Ciel could make reploids immortal, sort of like what the virus had done except not evil, then could this be used for good too? Whatever it was, it probably wasn't cheap or easy, if no one had been able to undo it. If they hadn't been able to do it for anyone else, when surely Master X would have wanted that.

Copy-X might have asked, but they needed to stop Weil and Leviathan was looking at Ciel with her hands on her hips, clearly wondering how they were going to get the valuable human out of here without her getting shot, crushed, explosively decompressed, or any of the other things that could happen to humans in unstable space stations. At least they had three, no, two cyber-elves here. It wouldn't be so bad to sacrifice them, not when they would just go back to cyber-space, right? Not that Leviathan knew that yet. Should he tell her though? Here? Where Weil might find out?

Of course, that was when the reploids Weil had dispatched to capture them before he'd made that call (in order to get them to stay put and hopefully get ambushed) arrived, and then things got very busy.

* * *

_It is a little meta, that Copy-X is terrified of the whole idea of thinking that it's alright to have people live in hell for the sake of some 'justice.' On the other hand, he does have good reason. I do try to make sure that these characters, while pretty alternate reality, are characters who could have gone down the same paths, become the same people they did in canon. Still, in the current 'verse, Copy-X is lucky. That all these older female relatives are not going to pinch his cheeks. _

_You know, Ciel may have been a couple centuries ahead of her time in more ways than one: she would have fit right in the Classic era. Ciel, Roll & Megamix!Kalinka? Wily should be afraid, very afraid…_


	36. Fire and the Sword

_My apologies for the lateness: family vacation and health issues._

* * *

Thinking used up energy. A lot of it. Cyber-elves would have been much more energy efficient, and able to live much longer, if they weren't sentient.

X and Dr. Cain had been able to derive designs for non-sentient mechanaloids from X's designs, because there as a lot of important work to be done, much of it monotonous enough to drive a sentient reploid irregular. Non-sentient, robot or animal-level units also didn't need to be paid, on top of the ethical issues involved in 'slave labor.'

Well, they'd seemed like pressing ethical issues to the two of them, at the time, but from all their dreams of building a better world had come a place where yes, people were essentially forced to work, because if they didn't work, they wouldn't be fed/recharged, and if _everyone _didn't work, _no one _would get fed or recharged.

Neo Arcadia used mechanaloids for everything it could, because of the lower energy cost, but there were so many necessary tasks that required thinking, training, judgment. Like riding herd on packs of mechanaloids to keep them repaired and spot any problems that developed before they became emergencies. Since that normally didn't require a lot of heavy lifting (that was what the mechanaloids were there for in the first place), most of Neo Arcadia's managing and engineering positions were filled by humans. That was part of why Neo Arcadia had started genetically engineering for intelligence instead of just dealing with the potential hazards of a population with so little genetic diversity, despite the risks. A human who couldn't do the advanced mathematics required for basic engineering or learn how to craft and analyze words well enough to program that wasn't able to find some other way to make themselves useful, like developing the reflexes necessary to join the Zan'ei, had two options: surrogate motherhood (bearing children for professionals valuable enough the city didn't want them taking leave long enough to have the required offspring), or using their superior senses to help scavenge the Wastes for valuable supplies. And probably not making it to thirty. Even today, _no one _wanted to be useless. It was not a good thing to be.

Those who did not contribute were not tolerated. Especially after the Elf Wars. If a human was suspected of using their race to coast, taking advantage of the labor of reploids? After a century of maverick propaganda, after what Weil had done? For the first decade, a human who didn't make it very clear that they were contributing, that they were pulling their weight well enough to make up for all the energy 'wasted' growing crops, was very likely a dead human.

The age of lynchings, riots, sabotage of the hydroponics farms by reploids and production lines by humans was over. Mostly. But the Guardians remembered that if a district's humans went three days without food or a reploid's charge decreased enough that they only had a handful of hours left to get more energy, all bets were off.

It wasn't that the people hadn't trusted that X would try to do his best for them. It was that they had _known _that there were only so many resources, so the food or energy might just not be there unless they got it for themselves, first.

All that effort to keep those people alive, two races with such different needs, and there was one race that had mocked X's efforts.

Because cyber-elves had to be made. They could do things that were otherwise impossible, either because they violated the laws of physics or doing them conventionally would have required too much time, energy and machinery the city didn't have and couldn't afford to build. Researchers had tried to make them less intelligent, something like mechanaloids, so they wouldn't be sacrificing the lives of people.

It couldn't be done. In order to alter reality, cyber-elves had to be sentient. They had to have that concept of an 'I' in order to pit it against the universe. They couldn't create cyber-elves without sentience. They could drastically reduce their level of sapience.

So, even as they were making humans more intelligent, they worked to make another sentient race less intelligent. So that they would live longer? So that they wouldn't rebel against their fates? So that people could feel better about sacrificing something that might not have much imagination, but was still a person? All of those?

Of course, there were limits.

None of that mattered to one of the elves sent with Fefnir, who was bobbing up and down, simultaneously excited and annoyed, but mostly excited as they watched the battle from a safeish distance of a few hundred meters. "Can I blow it up now?"

"No," said the largest one present, who sounded amazingly little annoyed for someone who had been hearing this every fifteen seconds or so since the battle started, with only the occasional break when something especially impressive happened..

Bob. Bob. "Can I…"

"No."

"Okay." If the cyber-elf had a very detailed face, he probably would have pouted. He sank down to the ground, not touching it because there was a lot of iron in the soil around the city, and there might be another electrical attack. The group's 'leader' was happy that at least he wasn't _that _stupid. Cyber-elves didn't have to worry about conventional attacks, but the power that had come from the sky… awhile ago (cyber-elves didn't have built-in clocks, unlike robot masters who had needed them for random number generation and reploids who had jobs and were expected to show up on time) had been terrifying. Even _he'd _hidden behind the half-melted body of one of the stealth mechanaloids that had tried (and failed) to sneak in before Omega showed up.

He'd never felt that much power in his _life_, all four years of it. And the Jin'en blew a lot of things up.

"Can I blow it up now?"

…Sadly, basic self-preservation and attention span were two different things. "No," he told Leo, again. Tank would have been far more annoyed if he wasn't used to it.

Leo was one of the older elves in the Jin'en, if not as old as Tank, who had been selected as a group leader and given more energy crystals very young. Actually, Leo wasn't supposed to use his power. Ever. All the other elves in his design generation had already sacrificed themselves, and the brass wanted to see how long Leo would last before wearing out. He'd already lasted far longer than an elf of his level should. The trouble was that the most likely reason he'd lasted this long was that he was, well, dim. They didn't make them like Leo anymore because elves that could barely remember orders and would constantly talk to the soldiers, again and again asking, "Hey, listen! Can I blow something up yet? What about that?" were… Not very well liked. Their rate of attrition had been much higher than normal, and even though Tank wasn't going to put up with the big people wasting the elves under his command, he sort of understood why they'd wanted to get rid of the annoyances.

He'd found himself looking after Leo because, well… Leo's view of the world was a very simple one. Explosions were _awesome_, and he'd been told that it was his purpose in live to make a big explosion. Which was awesome.

Most elves, well, very few wanted to die. None of the decent big people wanted them to die, either, so when Tank and his elves were called in, everyone was depressed, feeling like they'd failed if an elf had to be used. It was… Nice, to have around someone upbeat. Someone who didn't see elf existence as the tragedy that it was. Even if it was because Leo just didn't see that there was any problem with it to begin with, instead of because he'd thought it through and decided that saving someone's life, or saving the whole City, even, was a pretty good reason to go.

Tank wasn't sure Leo even understood death. Other than as a byproduct of explosions-Oooh pretty explosion! Mine'll be much more awesome!

If Tank knew what a pet was, he would have agreed that being Leo's commander was rather like having one, yes.

"Just stay here and watch the explosions," Tank said again, calmly. There was a lot of other important stuff going on, like the fact Master X was here, but he doubted Leo had any idea who Master X was. Explosions, though, Leo understood perfectly. Probably. Maybe?

* * *

She shouldn't be moving this easily.

Not that it was technically her moving, but regardless, either the armor that had appeared around her was actually some sort of energy field or the elf was doing something to reduce the inertia. It wasn't just that her body's strength was being boosted, that wouldn't reduce the momentum like this.

Training was mandatory, and mens sana in corpere sano, after all. Cerveau had taken his duty very seriously, including making sure she got outside and knew how to run. Or rather, learned how to run. In the close quarters of Neo Arcadia, no one ran outside of emergencies. And even when you were scrambling to get somewhere in a hurry? Outside the traffic-heavy corridors where running was banned and a whistle would send everyone to the sides in an emergency, most of the work areas were cluttered, pipes and all sorts of stuff, so rapid movement was more about agility, taking lots of little steps and adjusting her course, than covering ground with long strides.

She'd run both with and without a backpack, because if they ever did have to evacuate, running into the wastes without supplies wouldn't have kept her alive for very long, and she knew the difference between moving encumbered and unencumbered.

The red and blue armor she could see on her arms was probably an energy projection, she decided. Actually generating the mass and changing its properties, while possible, would be more elaborate and since this wasn't an ability Iris had come pre-coded with, it had to be something she'd just come up with. A program she'd created, that had come out of her mind and how she thought. Since she wouldn't have wanted to actually turn Ciel's body into a reploid, a copy of the body Iris was used to (which body, though?), she probably thought of it as an overlay. So it was more likely something like a force field than physical armor.

That was the idea, after all. Overlaying Iris' knowledge and skills onto Ciel's body. And Iris' ability to take a hit.

Ciel told herself that no, she was _not _going to learn how to use the beam saber after this. Zero's beam saber belonged with him, Master X, or in a museum; Ciel should stick with distance weapons because melee weapons like this were obviously a bad idea without elf help and she wasn't going to have someone die for her in every fight she got in; and beam sabers were dangerous. Ciel started thinking and lost track of what she was doing easily: she'd ruined a lot of meals that way before she was sent to her new base with Cerveau as her minder/minion. Not that he minded being called a minion, because it was traditional and he was proud that he was the one who was trusted with helping her with her inventions, but she didn't want to insult him…

Like that. If her mind wandered with a live beam saber, she could die, and then who would work with what she'd just discovered? Who would have the insights and create the technologies needed to let everyone come back to life? She didn't want people to die because of her, and if they died because she'd died because beam sabers were so, _so _Omega-damned cool…

How had Zero been able to give up his beam saber? Well, maybe he hadn't remembered that this was the _coolest thing ever_?

It would have been even better if Ciel was the one kicking this much ass, but getting to watch Iris, getting to feel all the movements… Ciel bet she could reverse engineer Iris' beam saber style… Which would be _Zero's _beam saber style, because Iris said Zero had taught Colonel-her?

Learning Commander Zero's own beam saber style… Eeeeee!

Maybe she could train with a padded stick, or something? Well, bruises would be much better than cauterized stumps. It wasn't that Ciel was clumsy as that she didn't pay attention to where things were relative to her while she was thinking: maybe training would improve her coordination, help her learn to focus on things like that?

Which was totally just an excuse, and she knew it, but… She shouldn't spend her time on things that were impractical and would just get her killed in a real fight…

"_Are you alright?_"

"_This is so cool! I didn't get to see Zero fight with the saber." _Even when he'd fought the one enemy he'd needed the saber for, she'd done the sensible thing and stayed around a corner from the room they fought in. She'd wanted to see, but she knew that just one stray shot would kill her, and Copy-X would blame himself, and she was determined to be responsible. Even if it meant having to miss out on the Legendary Zero fighting. She'd watched a lot of tapes of him, while she was studying X in order to copy his capabilities and techniques instead of just his design, but getting to watch him in person… He was so graceful he made managing that long hair look easy even just with guns and his bare hands: how elegant and graceful he'd be with a beam saber! Such skill, he'd make it look so easy, like how X fired without even seeming to take an instant to aim, charging as he dodged…

"_That's a shame. You should have seen him back then, he was…" _Both of Iris had loved it. Iris-her because even though it was an art meant to kill, it was a thing of beauty, and she'd first see him use it to spar, before she became his spotter. He'd seemed… Invincible, perfect. The contrast between when he held that beam saber in his hand and when he didn't, though? He was so skilled on the battlefield, just somehow knowing what to do, where to stand, how to use every new technique. Flawless. But when he talked with her, with most people besides X, he was wooden and professional, and then when she'd made her feelings known? He'd been so awkward it was adorable, and actually, she'd been relieved that he wasn't perfect. That she was the one that could cheer him up, help him be with people. Help him smile.

But it was the part of her that had been Colonel that supplied the word, "_Glorious_." Dr. Cain would have preferred it if Colonel had chosen another weapon. Any weapon that wasn't the beam saber. Not when that had been his brother's weapon, lost Sigma. Not when Dr. Cain would be the one optimizing Colonel for his new weapon, tweaking his balance and remembering building Sigma's new body, after he'd decided to be a warrior.

But Colonel had decided that Zero would be his role model, not X, not the one Dr. Cain had chosen. Not the pacifist, not like timid Iris.

Made to be like X, they'd both defined themselves in terms of Zero. Trying to be their own people, they'd just picked another to copy. Or had they still been copying X, who had been Zero's sparring partner before Colonel? The one who tried to cheer Zero up before Iris?

Colonel had wanted to protect Iris as Zero had X. Protect the part of him-them that still believed in peace, that still had hope that the world could change. Waging war while working for its end, for something better.

She wasn't sure why it was so easy for her to kill now. Reploids like the one she had just demolished, striking at his overextended boot and almost leisurely polishing him off once the damage put his balance system out of whack. Iris-her hadn't been able to bear it before, knowing that every life was precious. Was it the madness that had overcome her when Colonel died, now that there were no longer supposedly two of her, now that she couldn't share the blame? When fighting had to be done, and there was no one to do it but her, no protector she'd forged out of her own soul to send in her stead?

It might be that she knew, now, that they wouldn't really die. Only humans really died. And it was humans she'd been willing to leave to the virus' lack of tender mercies. So what would happen if she was to fight Weil?

Well, she couldn't kill him to begin with. And that wasn't what she was here for. It wasn't any of the reasons she was here. And Signas was right, she shouldn't be the hero. She'd had her life, her chance to be the hero, to try to make a difference before the virus took her. It was their turn now, even though she'd do everything she could to help.

She was turning off her beam saber even before the last of them fell: she knew the output of X's charged shots, and judging from how much damage X's other copy's were doing…

None of them screamed when they died. The mavericks had all roared with rage, _something_. The members of Repliforce had all shouted defiance, although in retrospect it seemed like just simple frustration, that the world couldn't be the way they wanted it to be. That someone wouldn't let them have their way.

"Ciel, Iris? Are you two alright?" Copy-X asked as he turned, the small, just for show protrusions Ciel had designed him with to mimic the Ultimate Armor folding up a bit to make his profile smaller but not retracting. He hadn't extended his true wings, not in such small corridors. Not when Iris had promised she'd protect Ciel. Copy-X just needed to know how long she could keep this up for.

"We're fine," Ciel told him, knowing the instant control of her body was returned to her, although the armor remained and she could feel that Iris was ready to take over. "It even feels solid," she mused, tapping the armor on one of her legs. "Well, all 'solidity' is caused by electron repulsion…" So how sturdy was this stuff? Would it be more vulnerable to energy weapons?

Copy-X looked over Craft and Elpis next. If it weren't for the fact he was a Lightbot, if only by adoption, even though he wasn't imitating X, he would have backed away slowly. He had never seen anyone that furious except for Leviathan, and Leviathan had been, well, exaggerating.

Elpis was staring at her hair. It hadn't been cut, or else Copy-X would be much more worried. It was clear that Elpis was holding on to self control by sheer, obstinate refusal not to give anyone the satisfaction of watching her rave and curse. Weil's reploid hadn't managed to cut it, but the third-to-last one she and Craft had faced had been fire element.

"Maybe you can dye it?" Copy-X said, hopefully. It was still intact, even if the heat might have damaged the fibers as well as burning them black.

Elpis took a deep breath. "No one has ever got my hair before. And they were aiming for it, the bastards." There was no real rancor in that. She'd known they would: of course they would. It was better than aiming somewhere vital, even in a spar, and leaving her hair hanging loose instead of tying it up under her helmet before she fought was a boast. The Rekku took their pride seriously, and anyone who couldn't put their fighting skill where their mouth was deserved to be taken down a peg. Or have a couple inches sliced off. Leaving it down, well, it was something she'd done to force her to fight her hardest. Even if the risk of having to replace something so ungodly expensive wasn't the same as risking her life, it was still a _risk_. She'd always been hot-headed: she'd been easy to goad into making stupid attacks all throughout training. Doing things without thinking it through first was her weakness, and she knew it. Having something to defend on her person, something precious at risk, had been the only way she could think of to make herself feel a little reasonable _fear_. Because in a real fight, it wasn't a few feet of high-tech fiber she could lose by putting herself in danger, it was her life, and the lives of her men.

She'd only been able to afford it because of the bonus everyone on Antarctica got, between the environmental hazards and the extra energy needed to operate at that temperature. No one there had been powerful enough to give her a real challenge after it had arrived. This was the first time anyone had gotten her hair.

And she'd stabbed the bastard that _dared_ in the gut, felt her saber slice through important components until she'd felt the initial shock of containment giving way and kicked him off her blade into the wall before he blew up.

That had been the second time she'd killed something that wasn't a mechanaloids. It was the third reploid she'd fought, but Craft had finished off the first of them. He'd also gotten one of the ones afterward.

Even so, fury had long since started to turn into elation, and she realized her body was now vetoing shaking with _excitement_, not rage.

Three kills. Two more and she was an Ace, even if they weren't air-to-air kills.

But no. General Leviathan had told them to stay here, to protect Dr. Ciel.

"We can't stay here."

All three of them stared at Copy-X.

"Splitting the group isn't a good idea," he told them. "I didn't disagree with Leviathan while she was here because it would have caused arguing," which they didn't have time for. "We're going after them."

"But the General told us to stay here," Lieutenant Elpis reminded him.

"We should stay out of the way while they're fighting Weil, but we should stay close…" Copy-X stopped himself. Right, there wasn't time to explain, but he didn't have to explain. "I'm countermanding her orders. We're following the three of them."

"Countermanding the orders of one of the Guardians?" As little as Craft liked getting told to stay here out of the way while the exciting battle went on elsewhere (Neige would never forgive him for missing this), he remembered the last time he'd done something disobedient. He'd rather not tick off the General like that again, thanks.

"Under the circumstances, I have the authority," Copy-X said calmly.

"He does?" Craft asked Elpis, who should know the regs, since she was in the military.

"You do?" Ciel asked Copy-X, surprised and proud.

"Yes." The layout of this place could change: there _was _no safe place here. Leviathan hadn't given that order because it was safer for him to stay here, she'd given it because she wanted to keep him away from Weil. That was why she would have tried to get him to back down if he'd said no, he was coming with her.

Right now, according to everything Phantom had taught him, the safest place was where General Leviathan was. If she hadn't known that, she wasn't thinking clearly. Because this was Weil. Another reason he'd been willing to stay here at first was in hopes of keeping Ciel away from the fighting, but since they'd been attacked here and Iris had revealed that she could link into Ciel to boost her like this and recharge from her nervous system, that didn't make any difference anymore. They'd found a place with three corridors, so they had multiple ways to retreat, but even though they'd been attacked from all directions, most of them had come from the way Leviathan and the others had gone. Trying to herd them away from the center, possibly into a trap.

Another reason he'd wanted to keep them away from Weil for a bit was that he hadn't known how any of them would perform under fire. Now, Elpis was making him think of Leviathan, which was good. Even Craft, who must be new, and Ciel were holding up okay. Even though they'd killed.

It was actually making Copy-X feel a little relieved, that they weren't bothered by it more. Since he hadn't been bothered by it the way he'd thought he should be. If they were going to crack under the pressure, hopefully they'd be showing signs? So they weren't likely to snap at a bad time and distract Leviathan.

For fighting Weil, it was better if all of them stayed away from Leviathan and those two. For keeping the group _safe_, they should stay together, or at least close enough to assist and not get separated. He knew that Harpuia and Phantom would agree with that assessment. Leviathan had to know that too. She'd just… after seeing that he was okay, it was like she'd wanted to pat him on the head, put him somewhere safe, and kill Weil so he would stay safe. But that wasn't… That wasn't the right thing to do in this situation. Even if she wanted it to be. Even though he understood, and wished he could keep Ciel away from Weil too.

He had the right to overrule the Guardians when he was playing the role of X. When he was being X. And right now, he knew what X would do. He was good at knowing what X would do. It was much easier than figuring out what he personally should do, actually. So, "Let's go," he said, and although he didn't raise his voice they knew that was an order.

* * *

_I may think that Elpizo had the right assessment of Neo Arcadia, and what he did while under baby elf control can't really be used to judge how he would act of his own free will, but his fatal flaw as a commander is overconfidence. Just because Zero can kick Guardian ass one-on-one doesn't mean ordinary reploids can, not when they're aspects of X with decades of experience as individuals on top of that. That doesn't mean that the Resistance should give up, of course, it just means they need to fight smart. And call in air strikes. _


	37. If It's Stupid And It Works

Training against each other for so many decades might have given the Guardians a disadvantage, because they knew how to read each other so well. It also meant they could read each other so very well.

Omega's bulk, designed as a weapon of intimidation rather than, or as well as, a weapon of war, made him good at crushing vehicles, homes and hopes but meant that a small, agile target was hard to hit, especially when it was perched on Omega's shoulder investigating his neck joint and if wounds would be healed around metal spikes rather than ejecting the foreign material first. Phantom was thinking about various types of small bombs, although getting them delivered safely to the battlefield might be difficult. Or not. What was Weil doing, that he was letting them get away with this?

Large arms swung slowly, and Omega's intelligence had been limited, clearly. Weil had used him for two things: crushing conventional armies and fighting X. Omega didn't know how to deal with two opponents, even after fighting X and Zero.

Of course, he'd lost that battle.

He'd also lost the battle against Leviathan and Phantom, in that the two of them had accomplished their objective and escaped with their lives. During the Elf Wars, anyone would have counted that a victory, when it came to Omega.

Fefnir would fire, Phantom would get out of the way in time to avoid the Armed Phenomenon form's blast (perching on one of those ostentatious bits of Omega's armor, if not ducking behind Omega's back) and Omega might take one or two ponderous steps towards him, or even activate hover to move towards the greater threat (or at least the one doing more damage: Phantom was not going to call Fefnir _greater_), but then Phantom would dig a blade in somewhere and Omega would lose that train of thought, trying to slap the small menace.

Fefnir would probably find this hilarious later, Omega trying and failing to swat Phantom like a fly, and Phantom might even smile himself, but right now this was harder than he was focusing on making it look.

He'd impersonated X before. X _could not fall. _Even though the entire city wasn't watching (they had bomb shelters, deep underground), the command staff surely were.

Phantom had passed Aurora off to Fefnir, since Phantom had to get in close. Even if losing X's body would be a massive morale loss, letting Omega get its hands on Aurora? Without X and (currently) without Zero to counter Omega's powers, that would lose them the war.

Oh, there were things that could be tried, and even though Harpuia hadn't wanted to talk about the possibility of Weil's or Omega's returns he'd still made contingency plans, but even the sacrifice of every elf in the city would only delay the inevitable, unless they had some way to target Weil.

Still, Phantom knew he should be pleased that Omega didn't know how to deal with an enemy getting in close, actually touching the beast like this. It made sense that Omega had this weakness: X might have learned the beam saber because of Zero but he'd never been one for close range combat. Being close to them meant they could hit back, and X had never really understood the idea of a fair fight or warrior's honor or anything like that. Giving his enemies the ability to hit him meant that X might lose, and if he lost people would die: that was the only reason to fight. So losing wasn't an option, destroying the enemy as quickly and painlessly as possible was… well, it wasn't the right thing to do, but it was the only thing he could do, for so many years. He might have been reluctant to kill, but he'd never been willing to lose.

Omega had fought an enemy who rarely bothered to waste an opportunity to damage him on anything less than a charged shot. He hadn't fought other hunters: he'd crushed them. Getting in this close to Omega would have been suicide when he'd had the Dark Elf- Aurora imprisoned. It would have overwhelmed an ordinary reploid's mind, perhaps even altered Phantom's into a form that could be controlled, and used him to attack Fefnir.

There was actually a spot on Omega's back he couldn't reach: the joints just didn't bend that way. It would have lowered Phantom's opinion of Weil's skill if Phantom wasn't sure of the reason a weakness like this had been allowed to exist: it _simply didn't matter_.

Even Zero wouldn't have perched on an enemy quite like this. The beam saber needed more room to swing than Phantom's kunai.

Phantom had watched Omega fight Fefnir, and fought inside Omega's mind. He'd seen Omega evolve. Right now, he might be climbing on a dumb beast, not need much to defeat him but grip strength and some simple strategy, but that would change.

What grated on him was how much time this was eating up. Yes, they were keeping Omega from reaching the city, buying time for Leviathan and Harpuia to hopefully do something more productive, but Omega was keeping two of the four of them tied down.

Also, the longer 'X' fought like this, without actually _winning_, the more it might… No, actually, Phantom was more worried that he'd slip, he acknowledged to himself with a grimace as he finally managed to inelegantly bash through armor weakened by successive blasts. He smirked when he felt his kunai go in through an eye: it was a rather distinctive feeling. Thin shell, gel interior, then wires and boards instead of support struts or armor.

Now, where Weil's design was truly flawed was in this: Zero's original body was held paralyzed inside Omega's shell as long as it was functional. It would only be released to fight if the shell was destroyed. That meant that if Phantom could strike through the armor, or get inside the interior cavity, the far more deadly weapon at Omega's core was helpless. With the brain dead, the body followed. If they destroyed the outer shell but not the beast inside, the way he and Leviathan had, that was a different story, but for now they didn't need to worry about…

A hand grabbed Phantom's arm. The other eye opened, red as that of a Cyclops that had been up three days straight guarding its flocks from those pesky gods and heroes.

Phantom was pleased with himself that he hadn't panicked, even as Omega's outer armor exploded into shrapnel around him, shards hitting his body hard enough that hand lost its grip. Or maybe he'd been let go, to make an ungraceful arc and skid along the battle-scarred ground for a few meters.

The second option was more worrying. Omega was programmed to destroy: it should have grabbed him and torn him apart, not let him go and get bashed up a bit. Contrary to the mythology, Omega hadn't been sadistic: It wasn't smart enough. It didn't understand anything but destruction and orders, it wasn't capable of play, even that a cat did with tunnel rats.

Had Weil started giving orders?

The fact Phantom was able to get to his feet without being attacked made that more likely.

The fact Omega was standing there, his eye healed but with that outer shell showing no signs of reforming around him lowered Phantom's estimate of how likely that was. Weil had meant to tear down X and Zero. To have Omega defeat his enemies while looking like Zero, reminding them of Zero's power? If Zero's stolen body, Zero's shadow could do so much, what did that say about the legendary Crimson Hunter?

Fefnir fired again while Phantom was still studying his enemy.

The blow wasn't blocked with the copy of Zero's beam saber (X had kept the original) Omega wore. Omega hadn't even drawn it. Instead, a shield like the one Aurora had summoned had flickered into existence when… had Omega _snapped his fingers? _

Phantom liked surprises, but only when he was causing them to happen to other people. He knew very well how a surprise could screw up someone's entire day and battle plan. Omega was Weil's beastial killer, his mockery of all the heroes had stood for. There was no way in hell that Weil would have programmed it to have _style_.

Phantom flipped the two short blades he wielded at the moment into guard position, instincts screaming at him louder every instant Omega didn't attack.

"I'm fond of ninjas," Omega said in Zero's voice, "but dragons are overdone." The second half of that sentence had a different voiceprint. Not Weil's. No one Phantom recognized.

"…Grandfather?" Apparently Aurora did recognize it.

Phantom wanted to say something along the lines of, "Do you mean Zero? You have to mean Zero, the alternative is… That man is dead, even his echo is dead! He has to be, or else…" but Phantom knew, and knew well, that the universe didn't care if it was cruel. If it faced them with impossible odds. If it broke them. So Phantom's only hope was _not _to panic, because if this was who he was morbidly certain was, then Phantom's only prayer was that he wouldn't notice Phantom's panic, wouldn't wonder if Phantom had a special reason to panic, didn't have any hidden code in his own work that would let him figure out what Phantom had done. It had seemed perfectly safe at the time, in the hubris of his youth. Less unsafe than the alternative.

But then, Doppler had thought using a killed-virus vaccine had been perfectly safe, and it should have been. Except Dr. Wily had known enough of medicine to forsee someone attempting that, and specifically design the virus so that it would seem to work.

"I've gotten sick of watching Lightbots destroy my work so easily. Even if you deserved most of the credit at first." The being in Zero's body removed the saber from its holster, but didn't turn it on, instead examining it almost idly. "Or, actually, I deserve all the credit. If I hadn't shut down the damage nullification program Weil activated, you wouldn't have been able to so much as scratch him." He snorted. "No pain, no evolution: that invulnerability was meant to be a strategy, not a crutch..."

Fefnir growled, then almost squawked when Aurora left his body. What did she think she was doing?

"It's alright, Grandfather sent me here. He told me that you were in trouble, and if he's controlling Omega… Grandfather won't hurt me." He said he didn't need to, after all.

"I didn't send you here to help them," he corrected her. "I sent you here to get you out of my hair. And I didn't shut down the access of Omega and the baby elves to help them, I did that because this isn't some franchise." Weil had used his technologies, his strategies. For all the good it had done either of them. "I was going to let Weil conquer this world and then yank it out from under him." Ah, now he felt a smirk coming on, even if not quite a laugh yet. "He thought he could use _my _technology safely?" What a fool. "But, now he's got X, Zero, and two more blue lightbots up there with them, one of them idealistic. Speaking as someone with extensive experience with this kind of thing, he's fucked." Weil's copy of the lightsaber knockoff X and Cain had built Sigma was lightly tossed aside. Littering was petty, but he felt petty. Again. It was good to have his old self back. "I've tried technology, I've tried trickery, strategy, mind control, and it's all useless. X copied my strategies, so I'm going to copy his."

"By which you mean…" Because Phantom knew there was no way this man, this vengeful ghost, was talking about friendship, about care for others, about faith.

"I'm going to do what he did, and his brother before him. The patented Lightbot answer to everything: Charge into that fortress and kill everything that gets in my way." Fortress?

He meant _Neo Arcadia._

There were several answers to that, most of them useless. Aurora's gasp. Fefnir charging up his cannons again, because better to go down fighting and who knew, it might work.

Phantom's was, "_Genmurei_." He'd spent hours inside Omega's head and the beast hadn't been smart enough to guard its library of techniques. Phantom was a Lightbot and they'd almost called his race copyroids. He might not have the raw power of Omega or Zero, but his copy of that ultimate technique might-

Be dashed aside, struck to the ground to do nothing but make yet another crater by an almost impatient wave of a white-gloved hand. "You're a quarter of a millennium too early to challenge me, children," the ancient said, and laughed.

* * *

_People who have played Zero series likely recall that even before it got the Dark Elf, the Guardians weren't able to damage Omega. The fact Omega was so easy to kill to begin with in this fic was a Chekov's Gun: Sigma mentioned elsewhere that WilyAI had barred Infel Phira to unauthorized accounts, like the Baby Elves. According to this fic's worldbuilding, Omega was using reality warping to protect himself against attacks that otherwise would have damaged just about anything in the games & when fighting X during the Elf Wars. With its ability to reality warp shut off, it was at a massive disadvantage since the defenses it had evolved no longer functioned. _

_Also, letting the ordinary soldiers of Neo Arcadia (or their munitions, due to them not being idiots) harm the great Omega that even the Guardians couldn't stop in the games worked with the theme. Still, I wanted to make it clear that there was a reason they could do so other than the author powering down a canon character in order to make other characters look good, even though in this case it was for the benefit of minor canon characters rather than a Mary Sue._


	38. Wall of Thorns and Vines

_I had a bunch of ideas for the chapter after this one, but I can't write that one this week or it'll mess up the sequence even further. Ah well._

_Edit: I suppose the challenge of every author is to try to get the scene in their head into the reader's head, with all its meaning and awesome intact, through the imperfect medium of words, with the minimum lost in translation. The climax of this chapter is one of the most significant and dramatic moments in this fic, and it's one that's been in my head for most of the writing process. I'm grateful to the reviewers for telling me that I didn't do a good job getting it across, perhaps _because _I've gone over it so many times in my head that I was no longer explaining all of what caused it to myself and forgot I had to explain it to the reader. What worried me the most about this chapter was conveying the battle leading up to it: I watched a lot of battles on Youtube (my games are across the country) before doing what I did with the Omega fight vs. Phantom & Fefnir and going for a more hands-on feel._

_I've been _foreshadowing_ the technobabble that makes this and the outcome of the True Final Boss Battle possible throughout the fic, but there's a difference between dropping hints and an actual explanation. I hope this version is a little clearer. _

* * *

Leviathan had assigned Lark as the advance scout. Even though she was a cyberelf right now she still tried to keep her light dim and hovered carefully along the ceiling, sticking to corners as much as possible. Humans didn't look up as much as they looked down unless they'd been trained, and even though Weil had humans in his armies during the Second Elf War, he might not have learned to fight himself? Although he must know to look out for assassins, unless he'd used the baby elves for that?

Lark really hoped there weren't any baby elves here. How would you fight a baby elf?

She looked very timid, darting from makeshift bit of cover to cover, corner to ledge, and waiting a bit to try to listen before darting forward again. It was the best translation of proper procedure she could really do, though, when she didn't have her gun and there wasn't another cyber elf to leapfrog with.

When she finally saw Weil, she darted back right away so she didn't get shot at. Not because he was scary.

If Lark had thought about it, she might have said that he scared her less now than he'd been before. He didn't look very human at all now.

"I don't know if this is where the lab used to be. There's a large screen, bigger than most of them," and there'd been a large screen in the lab, the one Weil had trapped Master Zero in, "but everything's covered with cables." It was puzzling. Lark hadn't seen cables anywhere else on the station, even on the outside where all the pieces had been floating around. Maybe the cables had all retracted, the ends of pipes sealed themselves, so pieces didn't break off to hit the station later?

General Leviathan grimaced. "Repair materials and nanites. Additional power." She shifted to the pads of her feet, readying herself to dash forward. "The longer we take, the more time he'll have to drain the station in order to keep himself healed. I'll attack the cables and pipes." She looked at Marino.

"He'll aim for me anyway." Marino nodded.

"Are you sure you won't freeze up?" Leviathan's voice was even, and it was clear she was asking the question because it had to be asked. Just in case Marino really had been pushing herself, avoiding asking herself that question.

And because Levaithan wasn't going to hold it against her if she did. Or if she did the smart thing, and backed out now. Leviathan had seen what torture did to people.

Marino hadn't. Not before it had happened to her. The mavericks, evil as they were made to be, hadn't tortured. They'd tried to infect reploids and kill humans. There was no advantage in making your future comrades angry with you, and mavericks still retained old grudges, even if the virus could make them forget old friendships. As for letting a human live, even another second?

So even though it would have been an insult to ask a veteran of the Elf Wars if they were _sure _they were up to it, for a veteran of the Maverick Wars it was a valid question. One they might not know the answer to themselves, running on bravado. Leviathan had heard about Repliforce, even though X hadn't wanted to talk about it. Or perhaps it was because he didn't want to talk about it that he'd made sure they knew.

Just like how he'd built them all weapons and heavily-armored combat forms.

Sheltering them would have just made it worse when the Second Elf War started.

"Cinnamon wasn't the only one who kept an eye on people," was all Marino said, shrugging. "What, I'm not going to get declared maverick for attacking a human, am I?"

Leviathan snorted. "Of course not, or _everyone _would have been declared maverick during the Elf Wars. There were humans on both sides." She glanced again at Lark, looked at Cinnamon. "Cut him back down to size, then we improvise." She could have put him in cryo if there was enough humidity here, but there wasn't. The station hadn't been loaded with much to begin with, not when it had been built to last and water was dangerously corrosive. She was a little surprised that the atmosphere here was oxygenated instead of inert, now that it occurred to her. Oxygen meant the risk of fires and explosions. An inert atmosphere would also have had the advantage of killing humans.

The saying was 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth,' but both this station and the virus had been designed by Dr. Wily, and even if Leviathan had been made after the end of the plague, she'd still been trained by Maverick Hunters. She knew that when it came to the virus, there was no such thing as too paranoid. (Suspecting people of being mavericks was different.)

Still, though, he'd meant to conquer Earth, and machinery worked best in the environment it was designed for, or a close simulation of it, just like anything else.

Part of her was contemplating that, and the risk of trying to wirelessly hook into the system here when A. it had hacked Harpuia's drones and B. _Weil _was hooked up to it, while the rest of her was ignoring the taunting (Weil had spotted Lark, or rather the cameras had) that echoed around the corner and _all _of her was wondering what Marino and Cinnamon had planned, from the way they'd looked at each other when she'd said 'improvise.' She'd only told them she was to attack the cables so they wouldn't wonder why she wasn't heading for Weil and think they'd trapped her or something like that.

She'd _like _to demand that the two of them tell her about this plan of theirs, but she wasn't an idiot and they had no way of discussing it that Weil couldn't overhear, if he was hooked into the station. A reploid couldn't do that, not properly, even the experimental units like Techno and Middy had been online, but they hadn't _been_. When she asked him, Grandfather thought that they might have developed into another race, one of system navigators instead of system managers, if Sigma hadn't made sure they got a bad reputation and the project was abandoned. They hadn't been immune or helpful in the fight, and that was what was important then. So Leviathan would just have to hope Marino and Cinnamon knew what they were doing.

Marino led the charge, moving so fast she would have been a blur to a human or an ordinary reploid. Leviathan had a higher frame rate. She was in Weil's face before he could react, unleashing a flurry of beam sword strikes that filled the room with the scent of scorched metal and burning flesh. An infiltration specialist, she didn't have the power to put behind her blows that Zero did, but quantity had a quality all its own. Leviathan had Marino's stats on file: she couldn't keep that speed up forever, but who knew what drawing on Axl's body would do to her hyper mode?

Leviathan saw Cinnamon's armor change out of the corner of her eye, Lark's uniform replaced by the Iron Maiden armor Cinnamon's father, Dr. Gaudile, had built for her when she insisted on leaving the lab. Cinnamon hadn't been built for strength any more than Lark had, so the motors in that armor would about double the force behind her swipes. If Iris could manifest her armor around a human indefinitely, could Cinnamon keep this armor on for the entire battle, instead of needing to switch out of it before the weight and power of it put too much strain on her components? Dr. Gaudile had cared for Cinnamon, but he'd never wanted her to fight or built her for it. Not when she contained the force metal generator, something the mavericks would be more than happy to kill for.

It annoyed Leviathan a little that out of the female models that were built for combat at all, almost all of them emphasized speed over strength. Human aesthetics didn't approve of fat people. It implied hoarding food while others starved. Even with Neo Arcadia's research into size reduction of parts, a reploid that looked all that much like a human female couldn't have too much armor. So it was build them to dodge the hits they couldn't take or you might as well toss them in the scrap heap and get it over with. But the additional speed and balance mechanisms _also _took up space…

Of course, just because it was inevitable didn't mean she had to put up with it.

"Back for more," Weil finally managed to force out, despite Marino's work to keep that mouth in too many pieces to talk.

"Be quiet!" Cinnamon ordered.

"Not so tough without a little girl to use, are you, you bastard!" He'd started guarding his mouth? That just left his hands open to her attacks. Watching Weil heal himself just made Marino even more furious, but that fury was will was power.

Weil sacrificed cables by dropping them down in front of him, in order to buy him enough time to gloat, just a bit. "I don't need her, or the baby elves. I have the greatest weapon ever built."

"The one Fefnir's been playing whack-a-mole with?" Leviathan wondered, spearing cables that writhed around her feet, vying to ensnare them and getting in the way of each other more often than not.

"Not Omega, not Zero's body: Zero!" The blood that leaked from Weil's chest was thick and orange, more a gel than a liquid. The air smelled of iron, tasted like copper.

Leviathan opened her mouth. Fortunately, so many things today were reminding her of the past, so she came to her senses and closed it.

Since Harpuia and Leviathan had been built to be connected to tons of lesser units and tell the cute, loyal, dumb little things what to do, it was perhaps inevitable that they turn out bossy perfectionists who were convinced everyone around them was stupid and needed to be told what to do so they'd do it _right_.

X had never liked the inevitable, and _X's _father had put X in a capsule for a hundred years to make sure _his _son didn't turn out to be a brat who used his superpowers to oppress people.

Perhaps part of the reason for all the history lessons was to make it clear to them how little they knew, and that the wisest people were those who were aware of their own ignorance. He'd told them that they shouldn't tell other people what to do, not unless asked. For one thing, those people might not be the ones who were foolish: there were plenty of meteorologists in the world, and Harpuia didn't like to be reminded about that time she'd created a big thunderstorm in the wrong place and nearly set off a mini-ice-age.

(Hadn't kept Leviathan from teasing her sister for weeks, trying to get her to make another one. An ice age sounded _fun.)_

In any case: if you told someone they were doing it wrong and they knew something you didn't, then you ended up sounding _really _stupid. If you assumed an enemy was ignorant, then it would bite you in the ass. And, above of all, if the enemy really was being stupid, then _for goodness' sake don't tell them_.

Don't say anything. Especially not, for instance, 'Zero? You mean the same Zero that you trapped within this station's systems? The systems that I hooked up to and sweet-talked earlier? The Zero that's taking a nice little nap right now?' Because gloating was all fun and games until someone lost a city, and if Weil knew that she'd done something, then he could undo it.

So she shut her mouth and kept stabbing.

According to humans, there was a certain feeling when an elf used their powers, just like the way they could feel if someone was watching them. Leviathan could sense some effects, sometimes.

Cinnamon's power was impossible to miss. Ferham had flown into space and blown herself up, taking the force metal with her. Leviathan had always wondered if X had designed Harpuia while thinking of her, as some kind of tribute to someone who, like Repliforce, had been too young and had too much faith in the wrong person. She'd 'ended the conflict' by destroying of it… except the force metal in Cinnamon. Even if the vessel of the Force Metal Generator built by Dr. Gaudile hadn't volunteered to join the Maverick Hunters, X and Zero would have had to keep her in custody for everyone's protection. When Marino said she had to come with Cinnamon to make sure no one _else _stole her, she hadn't been entirely joking.

It felt like that power filled the entire room, and Leviathan let out an entirely undignified squawk when she realized it had. Why were Cinnamon's healing energies being beamed into _Weil's _body?

"Please," Cinnamon whispered. "Please, wake up."

What the, what the hell? She'd targeted Weil as well as the three of them? Weil? Sure, it was only energy a reploid's systems could use to power repair nanites, not instant healing like a normal elf. Cinnamon's power wouldn't have healed a human, but Weil… had… repair… nanites...

Leviathan's eyes widened and once again she shut her damn mouth.

Because the hole Marino had sliced open on Weil's chest, the one Marino could have told her had been there when they arrived, was _widening_.

Cinnamon wasn't trying to heal Weil. Or rather, it wasn't _Weil_ that Cinnamon was praying for.

"You always hated it when people fought without you," Marino said, head turned to the side, not looking at Weil or at anyone. "Come on," she said, trying to sound like she was joking, and yet the pretense was empty, failed to hide that she would beg for this, just like Cinnamon. Would put aside her pride as a thief and a hunter.

If Leviathan hadn't used every bit of water she had stored, her own eyes might have been as wet as Cinnamon's as Weil answered with a mocking laugh, even as a sucking noise came from what was left of his lungs.

Only a single laugh escaped before Leviathan threw her spear across the room, that horrible sound drowned and that filthy mouth plugged by the crackle of forming ice.

Leviathan's body might not have had any water left, but she'd known Weil's did. Not even an undead parody of a human could survive without it.

"Please, please Axl. Please wake up. You said Lumine did it, and Redips…" Cinnamon fell to her knees, Lark's short hair falling forward to hide her eyes.

"If _they_," scum, "can do it, then what's holding you back?" Marino folded her arms. "Laziness?"

Adaptive nanites. Leviathan cursed herself for not realizing it before. Where would Weil have gotten adaptive nanites? The same place Dr. Ciel and X had gotten an adaptive body, one that could contain Zero, one that could change around him in order to let _him _change. One that could even take the virus' place until Zero could survive without it.

Just as Weil's nanites must have taken the place of food, of everything that made everything a body needed to survive on his long exile out there in the endless night.

Only one type of technology in this world had that power to adapt: the New Generation reploids. With Redips and Lumine dead, the only one left that Weil would have known about, the only source he could have gotten those nanites from, the only one who could have volunteered to replace Zero's stolen body, was _Axl_.

Weil had used the technology found in Zero to create the Mother Elf. He was a copycat, not an innovator. She should have realized that he also must have gotten the technology to make him immortal from somewhere else. Someone else. Hell, it must have been a legitimate project at some point. Axl probably donated those nanites willingly, even after seeing what happened when people took samples from Lumine and rushed them into production.

Human augmentation, human immortality, protection for them against all the things that killed them? Who but a maverick wouldn't back a project promising that? Before the Second Elf War, Weil had been a hero. But everyone at that clearance level must have known the risk, that a newgen's personality could regain control over nanites taken from them. Lumine had turned all the reploids created from his nanites into pawns. Axl wouldn't have wanted to do that to anyone. Even though he could have. That was half the purpose of the new generation reploids in the first place. That was the power Phantom had told her about, the one he'd tried to use to fight Omega to a standstill inside his own body, even if he couldn't take it over.

A new generation reploid's nanites were their self. If their nanites had a foothold in someone's body, they could adapt to take over that body. Lumine had tried to do it to Axl. Phantom had tried to do it to Omega.

The reason so many copies of Lumine had been made was that new generation reploids were immune. They were immune to the virus because even if it changed them, even if they changed _themselves _into mavericks, they could still restore their original personality. Overwrite hacking attempts with uncorrupted data, as Axl had done to Lumine. They'd tried to program unique personalities into the reploids created from Lumine's nanites, but the very reason the virus couldn't overwrite a personality stored on those nanites (not permanently, as they'd discovered when that Maverick War began...) was the reason Lumine could control them. Because they were pieces of him to begin with.

Weil had killed both of Axl's wives, one by chance, one by torture, and _the entire time he'd been using a piece of Axl to keep himself alive. _

Weil was the kind of person to gloat, but he wouldn't have done this unless it was safe, she knew. Even if the programmers of 21XX hadn't been able to make Lumine's nanites safe with conventional methods, Weil had access to reality warping. They must have had some way to wipe Axl's personality from the nanites, made them as safe to use as X's were.

Leviathan wanted to tell them not to blame Axl. Wanted to tell them that it wouldn't work. Weil would have had the baby elves burn any possible remnant of personality out of them. If there was anything left of Axl in there the station would have sensed it, when Weil was hooked up to it like this. It wasn't just the body he'd given Zero that would have been tagged with his ID number, not when Axl was a Wilybot and Wily would have known the properties of his own work. It would have assumed that Weil was just a spare body, or a pawn waiting to be taken over, instead of reading him as a human if there was any trace of _Axl _left in there.

It couldn't work. It couldn't be that easy, Weil wouldn't have done this if it could be used against him. And if Marino and Cinnamon could wake up Axl, then why hadn't he woken up when Marino was _in his body_? If he still existed anywhere, it had to be there, not in that monster Weil had become.

But… But she was Fairy Leviathan, and she'd read those stories. Yes, for every prince that rescued Sleeping Beauty, there was a century's worth of bones under that hedge, and some of those killed by the thorns must have been splendid fellows. Fairy tales were meant to teach the young about the world, so it didn't come as a shock later, as it had to Leviathan and her brothers when the party ended and the new war began.

Yet even so, there was a way the world was supposed to work.

Death and sacrifice and true love: those could not go unrecognized, unrewarded. They _loved _him, and if true love's kiss could wake a sleeper, then how could two fail to be effective?

More: this was _Axl_. Leviathan hadn't known him the way Phantom had, but she knew this: he had to answer. He had to. If Marino and Cinnamon had _come back from the dead_ to wake him, then how could he not do the same?

As she watched, caught between memories that murmured of certain success and memories that foretold failure (because the real world wasn't that kind, the real world was Weil's hell?), the wound widened further. Weil's body fell apart around him, and the two who called for their lost husband reached out for each other, each to comfort the other, because this was _an _answer but it wasn't _the _answer. Not the one they had come all this way for, waited for, fought for.

A cacophony filled the air, and the static snapped into sudden clarity. "I told you I'd kill you."

Weil dissolved into sludge.

Cinnamon _screamed_.

She buried her face in her borrowed hands. "No! You can't… you can't…"

"_And he can't have a cyber elf," _Leviathan knew. "_Can't go wherever they've been. Not until he's dead, and his body's still alive_." His body was containing Zero, except Weil had put Zero in the station…

"Cinnamon… He _can't _wake up. Not and stay awake. Not until Zero's…" Purified, Marino didn't say. The Maverick Hunters knew secrets.

"He could, he could become a cyber elf. Like us, and…" Clinging to Marino's chest, Cinnamon felt her other love lower her head. "…What?"

"He's not _like _us. He's not descended from X, he can't become an energy being. He's his body, just like a human is their body." No soul, mavericks might have mocked. "He can't die, he can only cease to exist." And how could they ever want that?

"…And you didn't…" Tell me? Cinnamon looked up at her, distraught.

Marino closed her eyes. "…You're too fair to knowingly ask the impossible of someone." Ask Axl to wake up, when that would have destroyed Zero's own chance for a happy ending, maybe even ended up with a new virus getting unleashed.

Cinnamon buried her face against Marino. "I can't, I can't stay here. Not so close." And yet so far. This was Axl's body whose arms held her, and yet he wasn't there. She'd heard his voice, but he'd spoken to _Weil_.

Because he couldn't answer her. Couldn't talk to them.

Because, Cinnamon knew, if he had, he couldn't have left them. Axl just wouldn't have. And then everything she'd watched: what would have been the point of it all?

"Then I'll take you away from all this," Marino said, remembering when she'd first tried to steal her away.

They were gone before Leviathan could say goodbye.

She wondered if she should resent that. Normally she didn't have a problem being petty, but instead she walked over to reclaim her spear like some sort of automaton as Lark pulled back out of the fall of Zero's hair, trying to keep him from falling over.

She had to be careful, or else the claws that were still on her hands, even though they were hers again, would have cut even that armor.

* * *

_Oh, there's a reference in here to _One for the Morning Glory_ by John Barnes. Read it, it's fantastic._ _Incredibly funny, tragic and genre-savvy fantasy, with catapults loaded with flaming zombies as a weapon of war._

_Anyway, I hope it makes a little more sense now._

_The biometals basically allow their chosen to shapeshift. And who's the shapeshifter? _

_The immediate source of the tech they're made from is Model W, the nanites that kept Weil alive. Then, when someone tries to create another biometal from those, they produce 'Model A.' Instead of being based on the personality of one of the heroes, this one isn't aware it's based on anyone, and wasn't really designed to be a certain way._

_So, it _defaults_ to Axl's abilities, and has a bit of his personality. If Zero series contains an amnesiac Zero and tech made from Zero, why not theorize that whatever Weil did to create his immortality tech (or, if you go with the explanation that Weil was made immortal by Neo Arcadia, the remnants of the hunters' immortality tech... Which then begs the question of why they didn't use it for anyone else... Ah, Capcom.) involves Axl and tech derived from Axl? When, in the absence of Weil's influence or any other template, a consciousness formed from those nanites turns out similar to Axl? Think of identical twins raised apart: this would suggest that Axl's 'dna' is in the biometals._

_Also, Ciel using Weil tech, that had been part of Weil's own body, and imbuing it with the powers of the heroes? I'd like to think she wouldn't do something that seems that stupid unless she had a reason to believe it was safe. If she dug up records of her ancestress' projects that showed that the nanites had a diffierent origin and weren't doomed to be used for evil, that would explain why she was so sure that she wasn't just giving _Model W _all those cool powers. After all, if Weil was sure that Axl's personality could be wiped from them, then Ciel could be sure that she could wipe Weil's, and restore the remnants of a hero to a heroic purpose. _

_My 'attack of the clones' embroidery of X8 isn't canon: they were clones of Lumine, but there's no proof that he was overriding their personalities and replacing them with his own. However, there are a few very suggestive scenes, and all the foreshadowing that he intended to take over Axl. It's an Aborted Arc, but something that Sigma says also lends itself to the interpretation that Axl and Lumine were 'hive princes' constructed to replace Zero, since he was being so difficult about it. Being able to control multiple bodies (and create virus) is a good skillset for that, on top of using shapeshifting so the main body can be somewhere safe looking innocent while the mavericks destroyed X and humanity._


	39. Shades of Duty

_Ok. For those of you who were confused by the last chapter, I went back and revised it a couple times. Thanks for the feedback. Part of what I've been trying to do with all the worldbuilding and foreshadowing is establish concepts that are tied to important plot points in advance, so I don't need to explain what's happening while it's going on and have the exposition detract from the moment. Apparently I still need to work on this. Well, I started writing fanfic for practice in the first place. _

_When I originally wrote the outline, I thought the fic would have been done a few chapters ago. Well, that's what comes of trying to choreograph so many proactive people. The events in this chapter aren't in the outline, but it turned out _something _needed to happen so that something else wouldn't happen yet so a third thing would have time in which to happen. Heroic types. This is almost as bad as _Tree of Thoth_. No, I take that back. Very few people are as bad as Flay._

* * *

"…But one thing you Lightbots don't do is stand around gloating," Wily said, and moved.

"Or," he added, as rapid strikes dashed Phantom's hopes that Wily's mind wouldn't possess Zero's skills as well as Zero's powers, "Is it that you don't let pride get in the way? My skills were superior to Dr. Light's from the beginning: Rock copied the skills I optimized for all the robot masters that fought for me, even those built by hacks. Even an inferior copy of my superior work was better than what Dr. Light could do on his own, and how he fought shows he knew it."

Phantom gritted his teeth despite his attempt not to display emotion, even has the force of another strike made him slide back an inch. The rubble here was anything but secure footing. He knew how to compensate for that, but even though Wily had thrown away Zero's beam saber, the energy blade he'd generated was letting him use Zero's skills, Zero's body memory.

The skills and powers of a hero, who had defeated Sigma. The virus' pawn, Wily's pawn.

Zero had been a combat instructor, Phantom knew. X and Axl's combat instructor. According to the stories X had told the four of them about their family, Wily had fought, but he'd been a mech pilot.

…And that was what he was doing now, Phantom realized, eyes widening. He had control of the body of one of the two greatest warriors ever built. A soldier with over a century of combat experience. Weil had been afraid of that power, had caged it inside a cumbersome mech meant to limit its power. Wily didn't need to be afraid of it: he knew the technology, the traps were _his _traps.

Humans had body memory. Reploids came with pre-programmed combat patterns. Ones that the four guardians had torn down and rebuilt from scratch as they got more experience, but it was that which let them react quicker than thought. It was reflex born of training that was letting Phantom's two kunai move fast enough to block that single blade while his mind raced.

Just like Copy-X could have fought according to the dictates of Ciel's copies of X's battle reflexes if Phantom and the others hadn't insisted that Copy-X learn how fighting worked and develop his own style, Wily was reaping the benefits of Zero's practice. Phantom wasn't just fighting Wily, he was fighting Zero's ghost.

Zero had been X's sparring partner, and Axl's. The root of Phantom's style came from Maverick Hunter Special Operations Unit Zero, and Zero had _created _and codified that style. It was Zero that had kept weilding the beam saber even after Sigma had disgraced it. Even though Harpuia and Phantom both dual-weilded, it was X that had programmed them, taught them what he'd learned from Zero.

And Zero had been a warrior his entire life. Oh, he'd also been a trainer, he'd also been an officer, but everyone knew those were distractions. Necessary distractions, but things to be kept to a minimum because the immune hunters were needed in the field.

Phantom and the others had been forced to manage logistics almost from the beginning, and after the war? There had been a city to run. They'd kept in training, they'd stayed hands-on, none of them were desk jockeys by inclination… But the fact remained that someone had to do it.

Phantom's life might be a reasonable fraction of Zero's active duty, but his combat experience?

He was used to being better trained and more experienced than those he fought, but this wasn't even the student fighting the master, he thought as he jumped back, yielding ground. Phantom was the student's student.

He was used to being faster, even than his siblings. He _should _have been faster than Zero: he was smaller, lighter. Less mass meant less momentum: that was physics.

This was Wily. And Commander Zero, who had learned to push his unnatural body to the limits.

No, there had to be some edge, some way to win, he thought, as he quickly lifted his right foot up over a heel strike and blocked the real attack with the kunai in his right hand. In some ways, he was grateful he was in X's body, not his own, even if X's was heavier. Either way, Zero had the reach advantage and Phantom should have had a slight mobility advantage. A blow that hard would have stressed Phantom's shoulder joint.

Phantom was glad that his kind were designed to copy others, snatch bodies and programming right now. He had been able to bring all his autopilots with him, and install them into X's body. Even though X was the greatest warrior in the family, even though Phantom had impersonated him a few times on the battlefield, Phantom was nowhere near as good as fighting like X as he was at fighting like Phantom. Phantom's strategies would have had compatibility problems with X's reflexes. X's forte was long-medium range, with some knowledge of close-range weapons and strategies. Phantom specialized in close-medium range, since throwing stars didn't exactly move like plasma shots.

Zero was a close-range specialist, but the problem with that was what Wily could do if Phantom gave him breathing room. He'd talked about charging into Neo Arcadia and killing people personally, but if he had abilities like Aurora's? Like the baby elves?

The baby elves had caused riots. Cinnamon had died in one of the first of them. They'd find a crowd and drive them berserk. Alter reploids' emotional settings, flood humans with adrenaline and dopamine, trigger wrath, paranoia and narrow the world down to kill or be killed. Make them so crazed and desperate for violence that they'd shoot _themselves_ for lack of other targets.

That must have occurred to Wily. He had to know that if he had the power, and if he'd tricked Aurora into trusting him then he definitely could have used her plus Zero's body to make Neo Arcadia _tear itself apart_.

The people X had sacrificed so much to protect, the people Phantom and his siblings had labored and fought for: they'd kill each other and themselves. The halls they'd scrambled to build, the refuge they'd bled for would be empty of all but rotting flesh and blood, coolant and cooling metal.

It would all have been for nothing.

Fefnir had only yelled for Phantom to get out of the way and let Fefnir get a shot in once, at the beginning. Her must have had the sense to figure out what a bad idea that was. Right now, Phantom was holding Wily's attention. The ancient thing was focused on him.

Why? To Wily, he, Phantom, X's creation, Axl's son, head of the Cutting Shadow Squadron was a _warm-up_. Ninja weren't supposed to have pride, so he could only be grateful, really. Wily was a mech pilot. Used to controlling more powerful mechanisms. Right now, he was using Phantom to observe Zero's moves, Zero's responses, learn how to control that powerful body without getting in the way of it.

He might have been a madman, but the relic wouldn't have lasted this long if it took chances with untested machinery. Axl had been abandoned, Lumine had only known a little more about what they could do…

Ah, there was the weakness. Wily's intelligence itself. Genius. It took focus, concentration. Wily had said it himself: if they could make him gloat, if they could keep him focused on one thing at a time, at least they could buy time.

That energy blade was made of virus energy, almost certainly. If it hit him it would disorient him, but Phantom hoped it wouldn't be any worse than that, especially not in X's body. Normally, he would have let Fefnir handle a close-range specialist while Phantom pulled back and got (smaller, better aimed) shots in, but Fefnir was an ordinary reploid. Built by X and Dr. Light, and older than any had been during the Maverick Wars, but even though Phantom knew Fefnir would resist, even though they had elves here, he'd heard too much about the virus to risk his brother.

Not to mention that they needed Aurora, and Fefnir had the best chance of getting her to do something, anything useful. Wily had dismissed her, but…

Overconfidence. That was another potential weakness of this enemy. Of course, the problem was that he had every right to be confident. Still, other than generating the blade he hadn't used any other special abilities in this fight. If he really did start fighting like a Lightbot, fighting conventionally when he wasn't used to it, then there was a chance that something unconventional might surprise him.

That was supposed to be Phantom's specialty. Unfortunately, keeping Wily busy meant that he was pinned down, and he doubted he was fast enough to escape without a distraction. Turn his back on _Zero_? Even if the opening would only be there for a split second, that was all this killing machine would need. Reflex, after all.

And that was what these strikes were. Reflexive. Not even like a training session: a sparring session would involve feints. Trying to draw Phantom out of position. The loser was the first to make a mistake, after all. But that was strategy, and while Wily might have Zero's reflexes, he didn't have Zero's trained mind.

Right now, that body was striking because that was the mode it was in, reacting to the openings Phantom seemed to leave, and Phantom could manipulate it a little via what openings he left. Trying to set Zero up to make strikes that Phantom could counter and still be in position to block the next strike. It was obvious when Wily exerted control, there was a slight pause in the movement of those arms as one move was vetoed and another was executed, but if Phantom moved from defense to offense? When Zero controlled the range and Phantom had weapons with less reach? He could throw a kunai, but that would leave him with only one to block with.

He needed Leviathan or Harpuia. Their favored weapons had longer reach: ah, that was why Leviathan had been effective against the body inside Omega. Sigma had used the beam saber and X had picked it up: Zero had trained to fight users of his own favored weapon. The spear was a rarer weapon because it had several disadvantages in unskilled hands, especially one-on-one against other reploids. Zero had learned how to use it: X had shown them a naginata that had belonged to him, but Phantom doubted he'd ever fought anyone who had mastered it the way Leviathan had.

Right now, this was stalemate, and Phantom wouldn't survive being the one to break it. He doubted Wily had figured that out, or else his eyes wouldn't be focused on Phantom. No, he was studying this battle: he hadn't learned to read the battlefield that well yet. He must be waiting for Phantom to live up to the tradition he'd embraced and try something sneaky.

Phantom almost hated to disappoint him. He really wasn't doing a very good job of being a ninja: it wasn't very ninjaly at all to be the in-your-face _distraction_. Or did the fact that it wasn't proper make it unexpected and deceptive, and thus entirely proper behavior for a ninja?

Right now the best use of his talents was staying alive and making Wily _think_ that he was planning something while Fefnir tried to cool that hot head of his down enough so his processor'd start working and he'd stop standing around while Phantom fought for his life and come up with a-

Zero's body jumped back.

No fool, Phantom jumped back himself, expecting the area they'd been standing to get hit with a blast of the four cannons of Fefnir's Armed Phenomenon form. They had names too, but Phantom had made a point of never learning them.

A blast of water, he saw, flipping up on his next jump to get a look around in all directions, including the vertical. A pity X didn't have eyes in the back of his head. Water, not ice, so it wasn't Leviathan's style-

Ah.

He grabbed Schilt's hand before he hit the ground, permitting the assist and motioning for Schilt to gain altitude as Zero/Wily charged towards Glacier, intending to take him down before he could get the water for another shot. This time, the barrage he dodged was Fefnir's, as Tretista and Tanz charged in. "Get me half... a quarter of a kilometer up and let go," he ordered.

"…Guardian," Schilt acknowledged, relieved that Phantom wasn't objecting to their presence.

Well, not yet. "I don't see Biblio or Childre."

"They wouldn't leave their posts." Not even to save two of Master X's children.

Fefnir might have growled and, "They'd _better _not_." _Not when Biblio was managing Neo Arcadia's power grid, making sure they could keep the point defense, such as it was, up as well as that command center in Harpuia's absence. Not when Wily had threatened the massacre of Neo Arcadia's people and Childre's responsibility was its most helpless.

Wily could get past them, it was possible. X and Zero had faced odds like this countless times. Childre was Levaithan's and Biblio was Harpuia's: they would know their duty.

Neo Arcadia didn't have any sort of self-destruct mechanisms. That would have been a stupid waste of explosives, on top of the risk that someone would go insane and trigger them. But its jury-rigged power grid was still dangerous enough. With the discovery of Area Zero, for the first time since Neo Arcadia's creation humanity had a chance of surviving the city's fall.

If the Guardians fell, Neo Arcadia was dead. But it could still serve as a deathtrap.

Weil's Numbers had done that kind of calculation before, many times. Watching their master throw away lives, use innocents as bait to drag down the heroes. Weil had intended that only a small, controllable fraction of the world's population survive. The rest needed to be killed off, so their deaths should be useful.

Biblio was a living library as well as a power plant. Childre had his own programmed field of expertise: all of the Numbers did. If the two of them could get enough of the Creche's children out of the city, two species could survive.

So Phantom nodded, and didn't rebuke Schilt for using his bats to keep an eye on the battle. Or was it Biblio that had tapped into the control center's network to keep an eye on things? Or had Cubit deployed her own stealthed watchers? He didn't warn them to be careful, either. They'd actually fought Zero himself, if only briefly, while Phantom had never gotten the chance. And if they'd been listening closely enough to disregard orders and head out, then they understood the situation.

Perhaps better than Phantom did.

Phantom had _fought _a mad scientist.

Weil's Numbers had been forced to fight _for _one.

Schilt dropped him off without asking questions, and dived down as Phantom closed his eyes. He didn't like making use of this, but he couldn't risk X's body. Not the one he'd chosen to guard.

_Passcode: Through me courses divine power, protecting those precious to me._

_Exec_Metamorphose - Phantom Extracting: Armed Phenomenon mode._

* * *

_The _Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works _artbook got reprinted. In it, Cubit Foxtar is described as female. This is an error in the translation. However, reading that description I got a muse and a bunch of ideas, so I'm going to go with it. It's also appropriate for kitsune to appear as human (or humanoid) women, when actually they are nonhumans, like reploids. Inari, patron deity of foxes and agriculture, is depicted and worshipped as male, female or androgynous depending on region and tradition. _

_If you haven't watched _Rurouni Kenshin_, do so. There's a bit with Aoshi Shinomori (a ninja) where they're commenting on using two short blades as a defense. _


	40. In The Calm

_I am taking a few liberties with the Judges (of course, I'm taking liberties all over the place, so perhaps this whole note is redundant). If you noticed in the last chapter that 'waterspout' is not one of Glacier le Cactank's abilities in Zero3, this is because his moveset in the game doesn't mesh all that well with the purpose he was built for. While the Classic games are a bit more complicated, Zero series has its elemental rock/paper/scissors arrangement, and he was given an ice attack for that. _

_In Zero 3, Weil did alter them (or change them back, depending on what version one goes with) and their minds for combat, so I wanted to give Glacier a move related to what he would have been doing in peacetime. According to his bio, Weil designed him to be able to help with agriculture to begin with (after all, he had to feed the humans he controlled) by bringing water to areas that needed it, spraying crops and such, so since this version of Neo Arcadia relies on hydroponics that seemed a reasonable area of responsibility to give him, along with Cubit Foxtar (Sol Titanion from the fourth game is one of her subordinates in this verse, by the way). Hydroponics requires light sources, when it's being done in the middle of a citadel for safety's sake, and I have a standing policy of making mythological references when possible. _

_Posting this one early to make up for posting the last one late._

* * *

Leviathan might have wondered why she wasn't celebrating this victory. A line from an old movie came to her: 'Ding, dong, the witch is dead.' Weil had even melted. Or was that a different witch?

If she queried her memory banks, Leviathan could have found out exactly how long it had been since she'd watched a movie, but that would be depressing and she didn't need any more of that in her life. Family movies, though: those were something she should have more of, maybe. The kid might feel bad that they were taking time away from their duties because of him, but hopefully he'd figure out that it was for them as much as for him before he got too guilty, or annoyed about being taken away from his _own _work. He was perceptive like that.

However, she knew very well why she wasn't celebrating. Just to start with, they'd been built when the world was celebrating the end of the Maverick Wars, and look how that had turned out. This was also the second time Weil had been defeated, so maybe it felt a little old. Or she felt a little old.

Also her aunts were gone, she wasn't getting Uncle Axl back and she wasn't going to be able to take them home to surprise Phantom with.

She decided to settle on disgruntlement that she had been denied her spoils of war… Well, alright, there was this nice, high-tech ancient functional space station. It wasn't exactly the same as bringing home family members, but Harpuia could still get some use out of it, once he found out what it had done with his drones. If it had its own teleport network, maybe they could use that to replace Neo Arcadia's. That'd save them a nice chunk of energy, just for starters.

"Um, General Leviathan?" the adorable little lieutenant asked. They were just building them smaller and smaller, weren't they?

Leviathan looked around. Didn't seem right to tell her to dump Zero on the ground, so, "Lay him down on that table over there." Even though Lark's arms were so short, Leviathan knew she should still be able to lift Zero's smaller replacement body up onto that table. They had minimum strength requirements for military models, including and especially airborne. A flight-capable who couldn't bring in supplies or evacuate anyone was a waste of wings and/or jets. Not that Leviathan would expect her to be able to manage the larger, animal-based reploid models or heavy equipment. Same thing, really.

Lark nodded. "That's the table Weil had him on." Even though the layout of this place was different now. Weil had reshaped the station (or had it reshaped itself?) around him to connect to the core of it and make room for all those cables and things, Lark presumed.

"I thought that was link-up equipment." Why she'd picked that one instead of the other table next to it, the one that had what looked like repair and scanning equipment on it. Since robot masters looked after their robots, Leviathan knew there had to be the equipment she needed around here someplace.

Ancient repair equipment? From 20XX?

Alright, maybe, 'I defeated the return of an ancient evil and all I got was this space station,' wasn't such a ripoff after all. Well, there was Zero. Bringing home one out of four family members wasn't too bad.

Wait, four? Oh, damn it. She'd forgotten the kid!

And the rest of Weil's reploids. They probably had orders to go hide themselves again if he was defeated, since Weil would assume that he'd manage to return again someday, and even if he didn't, what was it to Weil if some poor reploids waited in fear and darkness for a return that never came? A bonus. She'd better hook into the station and see what she could do to capture them, then get to work on getting Zero out of this and back into his… Actually, into Axl's body.

So would bringing Zero home count as one and a half, she wondered as she found the chair that Weil must have shoved out of the way so his floating eyesore could get at the control panel. She sat down, kicked herself back to the control panel (this place got serious points for having a spinny chair, much less one clearly designed to bear the weight of large robots or reploids) and rested her elbows on it while she examined the various windows on the screen and symbols on the keyboard.

She had to confess, at least to herself, that she was pretty stumped. It was something of a blow to the robot master portion of her ego that she was looking at a control panel and wondering, 'what the heck is this?' It was all Greek to her, or rather, it wasn't: she had Greek in her database because X had loaded it in there, even though no one spoke it anymore.

The Meikai and the Rekku were the best-organized of the four armies, and Harpuia was the one responsible for the overall organization of the city, because the two of them just thought that way. If people knew what their jobs were, and who to pass what along to, then they could focus on their jobs and passed the buck to the right place instead of all sorts of bullshit ending up on Leviathan and Harpuia's desks. Leviathan wasn't uptight the way Harpuia was, but turf wars were just unforgiveable when there were real wars to fight and no one liked having to do extra paperwork because the people under them were afraid to make decisions.

Well, at least the screen was straightforward. There were several processes running, it looked like, that had been typed in from here. At least one of them had clearly been aborted because of some external problem: probably that was what Weil had done to drain the station to power himself up. It might be too much to hope for that any of the other three were controlling Omega, but Weil hadn't expected to lose and certainly hadn't expected to actually die.

Provided he actually was dead. She didn't think Marino and Cinnamon would have left with the job undone, but Weil was an evil son of a bitch. Who'd had control over Aurora for years. It stood to reason that if X had thought that just destroying his body would do it, he'd have sent the shuttle carrying the two of them into the sun, Leviathan thought as she detached the tip from her spear and started prying open what looked like a promising access panel. The only connection cables in the room were those attached to the two worktables, and she wasn't going to hook herself in through something Weil had messed with. On top of the fact that worktables were for _malfunctioning _robots, so there was probably some insulation between those tables and the admin part of the network to keep a malfunctioning robot master from screwing up the system too badly.

Without any other orders, Lark positioned herself to stand guard, Leviathan noted approvingly. Good to see promising female model officers outside the Meikai. Part of the problem with Leviathan's reputation was that it meant most of the women and female models who wanted military service joined the Meikai, meaning there were fewer than there might have been otherwise in the other armies. She'd have to see to it that Lark and Elpis got a good share of the credit, became role models themselves to inspire those who wanted to fly. Having a space station in good condition that could maintain a breathable atmosphere without drawing on Neo Arcadia's resources meant that they could resume space training and maybe even start large-scale scavenging and mining up here a few decades ahead of schedule.

Since everything in the sky was Harpuia's problem, the Rekku would be in need of bright, ambitious people who wanted to go far. She should make sure Craft got some good shots of the Earth, all that good stuff.

"Well," she said aloud. "Once I've taken control of this station and dug Zero out of it, all we need to do is give the others the all-clear to rejoin us, and then we can head home. Without Weil, Omega isn't much of a threat: I might even be able to remote-control him from here. Looking forward to getting your feet back on the ground and seeing your builder again, Lieutenant?"

"Um…" Lark looked around. "Should I head back to meet up with… Oh, they're already here."

"Well, that's convenient," Leviathan said, carefully not frowning as the others picked their way carefully through the cavernous room's room's mysterious pipes. Not wanting to risk Ciel to gunk containing who knew what, the kid picked her up after a few words that Leviathan couldn't make out over all the clanging, clinking of cooling metal and hissing of escaping steam and flew her across the obstacle course of Weil's remains. Elpis also took flight, but instead of following the two of them remained behind to watch Craft's back as he picked his way carefully across the wreckage, careful not to trip when pipes shifted or creaked under his feet.

"Oh, that's…!" Ciel started to say excitedly when she saw the keyboard, but then someone else said, "Zero," with those same lips and touched her white-gloved hand to the screen. That window maximized, filling the screen except for a few icons and what Leviathan guessed were important status readouts at the top.

"Aaah," Leviathan realized, snapping her fingers after the panel finally popped open. "If Marino and Cinnamon were here to try to wake up Axl…"

"Yes," Iris said, nodding. "If anything happened, my brother thought that I…" She blushed, looking down at her feet, more embarrassment and doubt than modesty. Zero hadn't listened to her back then, and he shouldn't have.

"He listened to me," Copy-X told her, putting his hand on her shoulder. "I mean, he woke up because of Master X's voice, but, that just means that he remembers the people that were important to him, even without his memories. And you were important to him."

"So, that means that this will all be over before Summer Solstice," Leviathan cut in for the sake of Iris' feelings. "And Craft will be discharged as soon as he's taken some good shots, and can get back to civilian life and his wife." She paused, eyes darting around the room. Copy-X was more obvious about it, the wings that he'd started to retract easing out again as he turned his head, scanning the room. At least he wasn't charging his buster.

When nothing happened except Craft finally reaching clear ground and Elpis landing, Leviathan decided to break out the big guns. "Yep," she said, leaning back in the chair and casually putting the head back on her spear, "Nothing could possibly go wrong now."

Nothing happened, except Craft gasping. The noise made Copy-X jump a little, but he managed to get himself back under control, although Iris and Elpis had noticed that he clearly looked nervous and started looking around themselves.

They watched for a second, a second more, before Copy-X let out a sigh of relief. "All clear?" he asked Leviathan.

"As good as we're going to get." She knelt down to fiddle with the wires behind the panel she'd opened up. "Lieutenant Lark, help Iris and Ciel, if you saw some of what Weil did to Commander Zero. While I'm plugged into the system, I want you to keep an eye on me and cut the wires if it looks like anything's weird's happening, kid. That leaves Craft and Lieutenant Elpis to keep a lookout."

"So _that's _why you were tempting fate," Craft looked at her, amazed. He'd heard all the legends of the Guardians, but something like that?

"Exactly." She nodded. "It's a dangerous technique, which is why _no one under twenty is allowed to use it_," it was Elpis and Lark she glared as she said that, because she and Copy-X had already had this conversation, "but if there are traps out there, sometimes you just have to spring them and get it over with."

"If someone like Weil heard her saying things like that, they wouldn't be able to resist attacking right at that moment," Copy-X explained since Lark and Iris/Ciel still looked confused, although Craft (the TV expert) and Elpis (the history fangirl) were nodding. "Checking on the system safely and helping Zero like this will occupy the attention of a whole two-thirds of our fighting force, in enemy territory. It's not a good idea to do something like that without first making sure that it's as safe as possible."

"I wasn't really expecting a self-destruct sequence to start going off, but if one was, better to focus on it now instead of getting it sprung on us," Leviathan agreed. "We can be reasonably sure we aren't being spied on, although there may be hostile reploids left in the station who just haven't gotten here yet, so don't let your guard down."

All the others nodded. Lark and Elpis also saluted and said, "Yes, General Leviathan." Craft's salute was belated, but Leviathan decided that since he'd be leaving the army soon anyway, there was no point in trying to get him to remember the rules (aside from the important ones, like asking how high on the way up).

Once upon a time, she would have said it was all over bar the cleanup. That was what she'd said after they'd beaten Weil the first time.

The desperate scramble to gather the survivors, to create Neo Arcadia and keep everyone fed and supplied had taught her that the cleanup could be the hard part. Just like after the first Elf War, they'd won the war, but then the hard part had been winning the peace.

What would they call this? The Third Elf War? Elf War III? Would there be a fourth? There'd been a fourth Maverick War. A fourth Robot Rebellion, Wily War, Robot War, whatever you wanted to call them, although _she _wouldn't call them proper wars. Not enough people had died. She'd like to think that was because robot masters were like that. That was why Harpuia had done that to herself.

Well, she could worry about the next war later. Right now, the kid was safe, Fefnir would keep Omega busy until they managed to shut it down and she had work to do.


	41. The Prices They Pay

_Take Kelverian. Replace the K with a hard C, the l with an r, and the v with a b. You get Cerberian. When he's obviously modeled on Cerberus. I was thinking about using that instead, but Kelverian is the official spelling and I already decided to use Fefnir instead of the mythological Fafnir._

_So, I'm attributing the difference to a different pronunciation caused by a few centuries of language mixing and shifting. Or most people not knowing how to spell Cerberus to begin with and X having no reason to correct the spelling, since Kelverian is a nice-sounding name that isn't blatantly calling someone trying to reform a hellbeast. _

* * *

"Yes, I know." Colbor grimaced. "I know General Phantom would authorize it if he was here, but none of the Guardians are. Can Judge Biblio authorize it?"

Tech Kraken didn't look any happier. "According to his status, he's on two priority projects," searching the classified archives for potential Omega counter-measures and regulating the city's power, "and I can expect a call back when General Leviathan's hair melts." When the Ice Guardian, when Neo Arcadia's Warrior Princess lost her cool? When hell froze over. "I've cut power to all non-essential parts of our complex and operation," Zan'ei all had night vision gear of one form or another: they'd be fine with the lights off in the barracks, although the human staff had to pick up and move to areas where the air circulation and purification systems were still operating. "So everyone I'm sending out is charged the full seventy-five percent to extend how long they can stay on active duty, and I've got the desk jockeys charged up too if we have to send the reserves out."

"One of the other Judges?" Colbor doubted they could authorize it, but it was worth a shot.

"…What's the point of you being in that control center there if you're not keeping an eye on the screens?" Kraken wondered, shifting his cables from data port to data port of the Zan'ei Army's own command center. With everyone they could power out in the field, even the staff officers with rotating positions commanding their units, the head of Internal Affairs was wearing about ten different hats on those tentacles of his. With General Phantom gone, his was the only ID that would be accepted by the systems of the absent command staff members.

"Schilt and Cubit blacked out the area. We were only able to confirm the presence of five of them. What about Childre and Tretista?"

"Childre's not responding and Tretista's also gone." Kraken might have said that of course he was out there too, if the Judges were deploying as a group, but Zan'ei didn't do assumptions.

The Hellhound, Cerberus: that was what Tretista Kelverian had been called during the Elf Wars, although they didn't talk about that. Colbor had only been told because otherwise it might have come as a surprise if he found out on his own: General Phantom expected his staff officers to be intelligent and knew how dangerous a little knowledge could be.

Even though the Judges served Master X now, Tretista was still the closest thing they had to a leader of their own, mostly because as the unit built for analysis he was the first to realize Weil's evil and had done what he could for the other Weil Numbers. So called because Weil hadn't named them. Even now, some of their names were obviously derived from what their enemies had called them. The first names they'd received.

Hellbat Schilt, who flew like a bat out of hell.

Tretista: it was the reploid they had keeping an eye on ANN from the inside that had figured out the origin of that one. Tri-Tristia. Three sorrows. That was a name Master X had given him. Three heads, three processors set to analyze problems from different perspectives. That was what made him chief among the judges, Neo Arcadia's highest court except Master X himself. Three pairs of eyes that hadn't been able to avoid seeing Weil's evil and madness. Three heads that hadn't been able to find a way to stop it, to escape the hell he'd been built into. It wasn't a matter of serve Weil or die. Not with the baby elves.

Normal reploids got to trust Master X, the Guardians & those appointed by the Guardians to watch over the people of Neo Arcadia. It was the Zan'ei's duty to make sure those appointees were trustworthy. To guard the Guardians, although generally they did a damn fine job guarding themselves and the hardest part about playing bodyguard was not getting mistaken for a potential assassin and killed, which was why Phantom rarely gave them that duty.

But Colbor had been at the intake desk because part of his field of expertise was background checks, and Tech Kraken headed Internal Affairs. Colbor's job was to suspect even innocent civilians of being racists, revolutionaries or who-knew-what (if reploids left by Weil had been out there all this time, then Guardian Phantom had been properly paranoid), and Tech Kraken's job was to suspect even the most loyal, central cadre of the Zan'ei itself.

So the question they were both asking themselves, and knew the other was asking, was, was this a plot? Had the Judges gone out there to attack Master X and the Guardian along with Omega? Had all those decades of loyal service to the city and Master X been a front? Colbor _liked _Schilt. Those bat drones of his were incredibly useful. The Zan'ei were responsible for policing the city, and Neo Arcadia didn't have a security camera network, not outside of power plants and other areas where if something went wrong they needed to know before anything went boom. Not when security cameras cost parts and materials to produce; energy to build, install, and run; and manpower to install, maintain and repair. Aside from ID card purchases, job assignments, network use and that kind of thing they didn't monitor the populace because it was too cancerous expensive. This city was a warren that hadn't so much been built as thrown together in a hurry and then added on to as soon and as much as possible without more than the minimum possible regard for what had gone before.

So they had to rely on the officers on the street, or rather in the corridor, sometimes plainclothes or stealthed and clinging to the wall a few meters above 'ground' level of the larger atriums. There hadn't been any major riots since shortly after Colbor was built, and the sheer press of people meant that crime was rare. Oh, there were young idiot reploids that pickpocketed someone's ID card every once in a while, but _that _was easy to track, since the Rekku watched the power grid like hawks, pun on Aztec's design template intended. Anyone stupid enough not to realize the card'd get shut off or they'd get caught as soon as the owner reported the theft was often also stupid enough not to know that too-large power draw attempts, or simply unusual ones, would get queried and require ID number input, and those numbers weren't on the cards. Most citizens kept what valuables they had in lockboxes in their rooms, and since most people couldn't afford single rooms & shifts rotated there would almost always be _someone _in there to ask what a thief thought they were doing with that lockpick.

In the old days, they'd had food hoarding, the energy skimming racket, all kinds of forms of extortion. Not to mention the crazies. These days, the most common crime was blast-and-grab supplylifting, and half the time they'd get tackled by bystanders, thanks to community spirit and the bounty policy.

So the Zan'ei had shifted their focus from violent crime and physical theft to more subtle kinds, because smart criminals knew that the only sure way to get away with it (where could they run to? Neo Arcadia was the only city) was for the crime not to be discovered. Shifted their focus from patrolling the city to searching the wastes for hazards and resources.

From the very beginning, Judge Schilt had been 'assigned' to Phantom, since his bats could be sent throughout the city. Even though Judge Cubit's main job was monitoring the city's lighting and heating, especially hydroponics, the fox'd also been roped in to help when one of the towers wasn't safe for officers or they needed to trail a kidnapper.

Neither of them were part of the Zan'ei, and Schilt considered himself the closest thing the city had to a defense attorney, so often enough he did his own investigating without collaborating with the Zan'ei, to get a different viewpoint on the evidence, but they were good people. Determined to protect the city, always ready and willing to help out, even when it wasn't in their job description. Hard workers. Colbor was supposed to suspect everyone, but the idea of them turning on the city was like, like the _Guardians_ betraying the people of Neo Arcadia. The Eight Gentle Judges had been here from the very beginning, chosen by Master X himself for their posts. To doubt Master X's judgment?

The really scary thing was that the Judges might be good people and still be traitors. When Weil had built them, and the baby elves could have buried who-knew-what hidden commands and protocols in their minds. Yes, Master X had checked them yearly (at least) for all this time, but...

Creepy as hell, that was what it was. To think of people he knew getting controlled, forced to betray the city and attack their comrades. There'd been the Maverick Virus, but that was ancient history. Hard to think of something like that happening in this day and age.

So it was much nicer to think about the fact that the Zan'ei needed to step up their patrols of Neo Arcadia, because Weil's drones and servants were trying to take advantage of the distraction Omega was providing to sneak in, and reploid shift length was limited by the fact they could only charge up to seventy-five percent of their total e-tank capacity in every twenty-four hour period.

Most reploids used up twenty-five percent of their capacity per day, or that was the designed optimal amount. The usual ration for humanoid reploid workers was fifty percent of capacity per day, but some of that would be spent on rent, repair insurance, net & water usage. Not to mention savings. Sensible reploids kept themselves near a hundred percent and recharged as they used it: of course all the military personnel had kept themselves fully charged, but energy got used up.

Humans also had calorie limits, but since humans kept food in their quarters for when they got sick (even though hoarding was illegal, the last thing the humans needed was sick people in the cafeterias), it was just a matter of looking the other way when they brought some with them and snacked on duty. The Meikai called it holding a potluck.

It wasn't that easy for reploids. The charge limit was built in to all modern reploids, and every loophole had been closed as soon as it was discovered in order to prevent theft and energy extortion. They needed one of the Guardians, or _maybe _one of the Judges' ID cards in order to get the central accounting system to override it. For privates who hadn't gotten the expensive upgrades yet, seventy-five percent was _maybe _an eleven-hour shift on active duty, if they fell into bed afterwards and didn't move until they could recharge. _Maybe_ because it depended on how much they had to exert themselves. Combat could drain energy fast.

And that was why every officer they could spare was out in the field, and a lot of lower-level staff were doing work as high up as their security clearance would let them. The Zan'ei had planned out procedures for this situation decades ago: every army had to. Even Master X couldn't make energy appear out of nowhere, and war or emergencies didn't happen on anyone's schedule or for the power grid's convenience.

"Can the flyboy-" Yeah, they both knew Kraken was grasping at straws.

Colbor didn't even glance over at where Falcon was leaning against the wall, obviously using his own com. "No, General Fefnir didn't boost his clearance." Of course not, the meath- Colbor stopped himself. Interservice rivalry was one thing, but attributing a decision one of the _Guardians _had made to stupidity? "He couldn't, anyway. Not his branch of the service." Falcon was Harpuia's. "Besides, if he could, he'd have authorized it already. You know this hampers the Rekku even more than us." Even though Guardian Harpuia was providing eyes in the sky, the Rekku, like the Zan'ei, still had to get out there and scout for the Jin'en ground forces and Meikai strike forces. Flying was very energy-intensive.

Of course, if the Rekku weren't responsible for guarding the city itself. If Falcon couldn't keep enough troops out there, or provide reinforcements fast enough, it was soldiers that would die. Colbor and Kraken had civilians to worry about, and the infrastructure that kept everyone alive.

He felt a little better knowing that Judge Childre was still at the crèche. Nothing would get past him. Unless Weil had… No, there were Zan'ei there too, and Tech Kraken would definitely be keeping an eye on them.

"Any luck?" Colbor heard Falcon ask.

"No, we can't see through the energy field," Rouge reported.

"At least that confirms that Judges Schilt and Cubit are still alive," Colbor said aloud. Schilt was generating the darkness that blocked visual sensors: the energy blaze that jammed every other sensor pointed that way was Cubit Foxtar's specialty. Schilt's drones were bats: Cubit's were balls of fire that weren't actually cyber elves. The science of it wasn't Colbor's field.

They couldn't send someone over there, not when Guardian Fefnir had made his wishes clear. "Any sign of General Phantom?" Colbor asked Kraken over the com again, knowing that he was grasping at straws himself. Still, Tech Kraken was General Phantom's apprentice. Colbor didn't use the phrase 'like a son to him,' because, well, to imply someone had that kind of relationship to one of the _Guardians_? When that would make him family of _Master X himself_? Tech Kraken was old and had a lot of authorization, yes, but he was still one of them, just a regular reploid. A mere mortal, not that Colbor was one of those cultist types.

Anyway, it was possible Phantom might have told him something he hadn't told the rest of them, or sent him some message. But Tech Kraken just shook his head. "Haven't heard from him, or Lark."

"_She's _not back yet?" Now _that_ was surprising. Ancient lost technology wings or not, she was a little thing. Not a lot of room for e-tanks in there, even if she was demi-solar. It would have made sense to stick her undercover in the crèche. That was sort of what she'd been designed for, or at least what she'd _seemed _to be designed for. They all understood why she'd been sent over to that joint program with the Rekku. The Zan'ei might be a closed box to outsiders, but everyone on the inside had heard about how she'd been found. It had done her a lot of good, and she'd made friends over there, even if they were flyboys.

What kind of mission could be more important than keeping her among the children, to keep them safe? Small humans might have a natural aptitude for sneaking around, but they were too damn easy to kill.

The com call was suddenly interrupted: the Rekku's symbol replaced Teck Kraken. Colbor looked around hopefully and saw that the same was true of all the com screens in here. Not everyone had an internal system.

The Rekku's symbol was also its general's, and it was Guardian Harpuia that replaced it a moment later. Or the Guardian's avatar: Colbor could spot generated footage unless someone made a real effort. That meant the Guardian was probably still hooked up to Valkyrie, not back in the city and willing to authorize raising the charge limits. Darn.

"All officers, this is Guardian Harpuia."

Colbor's eyebrows rose at that: calling himself _Guardian _instead of General meant that Harpuia was speaking as one of the city's rulers, not just as a military officer. That meant that whatever orders he was about to give didn't only apply to the military.

"The following message is _only _to be securely transmitted." That meant it wasn't classified per se: they could talk to residents of Neo Arcadia about it, but they didn't want Weil finding out.

"Weil has been defeated by General Leviathan and her forces. _However_," Harpuia said quellingly, in case anyone thought that meant they could start celebrating when they were still on duty, "Weil's forces either have orders for that contingency, or will follow their old orders. Neo Arcadia will shortly be put on Class 2 Minimum Power." Shutting off lights and unessential systems throughout the city, freeing up the power from the generators for military operations. "Energy and material requisition limits are hereby lifted for the duration. Ride armor and other vehicle use is authorized for all human troops, and reploid troops at officer discretion. Non-essential civilian vehicles may be seized. All available troops other than security forces are to be fully charged and dispatched, along with all civilians rated for waste exploration. The goal of the scout forces is to locate any unidentified bases before they can rebury themselves." That meant the Rekku and Zan'ei, primarily. "We must also be on the lookout for any final strikes." That meant Meikai base defense forces and the Zan'ei, again.

"Forces currently attacking identified bases need to be reinforced." Harpuia didn't insult the Jin'en and Meikai strike teams by reminding them of the risk that the bases would self-destruct. Those who heard this message in the field would know they needed to head to the power core and weapons areas before the commanders of those bases found out what had happened to Weil. "In order to minimize teleportation costs, establishment of base camps in the field, bulk teleportation of supplies and expansion of preexisting bases are authorized." It would also reduce turn-around time, if soldiers had secured places to sleep and recharge without needing to go very far. "Master X, Guardian Fefnir and six of the Eight Gentle Judges have Omega contained, but vehicles departing Neo Arcadia must leave from the east to avoid the battleground."

_Oh. _Colbor didn't breathe a sigh of relief, but he heard someone do so. The Judges had headed out on orders after all, and not Weil's orders. Master X must have known it was safe to summon them to make sure Omega didn't get loose and attack the caravans after Guardian Leviathan had taken down Weil. Since reploids and supplies would be teleported, it would be humans in the caravans. Humans _could _be teleported, but there were limitations and it was too expensive to be done in this kind of mass quantity.

Well, one of his prayers had been answered, but the Zan'ei needed to _move_. With only emergency lighting, it would be far too easy for a vengeful enemy to move through the city.

Wily found himself reminded of Shade Man, and not just by the vampire bat-based one of Weil's Numbers. Damn copycat. Still, "That's one way to order an evacuation," he mused as he watched the saber he'd generated slice through a spindly green neck after easily diving under flashing steel. He'd wanted it to end with decapitation: such was the fate of 'male' praying mantises, after all.

Sending out almost all the troops, followed by almost all the civilians that could survive in the wastes, followed by supplies, as fast as their organization could move and the energy requirements would permit, without causing a panic by telling them the real reason. He was almost impressed.

Almost.

* * *

_Re. Shade Man's organizational & evacuation skills: Read the Mega Man Gigamix manga by Hitoshi Ariga, it's fantastic._


	42. Precious Illusions

_Refers to the Mega Man Xtreme 2 game. _

_Exec/Method_Despedia isn't for data display in this fic, although Ciel doesn't know that because Wily didn't explain what he was really doing. It's a mind control program that requires knowing the target's full name/system address, so commands can be inserted there. Since Ciel didn't know it did anything but data display, that was the only thing she willed Sigma to do. The lyrics of the program in Ar Tonelico 2 reference the old magic theory about how knowing someone's true name will let you control them. _

_Edited translation of part of Harmonics Eoria, intro song of the first Ar Tonelico game. _

_Since we're now in Stage Two of the true final boss battle, I decided that I didn't want to slow the plot down more than necessary, but there are still a lot of dangling plot threads that aren't necessary to understand what's going on in the battle that I want to clear up. For example, what's up with Lark/Alouette that I've been hinting about for ages. I also want to do some more character development, write a few AU scenes that I couldn't manage to fit in the fic & do some stuff like the young (and actually less chibi) Guardians' rivalries. X would be trying to stop them if he wasn't busy taking photos for the scrapbooks, because Zero will be sorry he missed this. Fefnir is just hoping the section in his scrapbook isn't called Baby's First Prank War. Phantom's so lucky he has the cool dad._

_In their alliance, Aurora has the magics and Fefnir has the opposable thumbs. _

_Anyway, I'm doing a sidestory collection-thing that's on my profile, currently called Stone by Stone since I couldn't think of anything better. Suggestions welcomed. _

* * *

It was easier for Iris to detach herself from Ciel than it would have been for most cyber-elves.

After what she'd seen on Laguz Island, acting as X and Zero's spotter, Iris had wondered about life after death. She might have been a little unhappy when she woke up after dying in Zero's arms, but not enough to try to find anything more permanent.

What happened there hadn't exactly been covered up, but it was classified, since they'd gathered a lot of information about how Sigma and other mavericks came back to life. And the knowledge that reploids possessed something similar to the old concept of immortal souls? When there wasn't any real evidence that humans did? She wondered if that was why General had become interested in religion.

Cyber elves, DNA souls: were they the same thing? Except the DNA souls of reploids were derived from X, while the cyber elves were derived from the virus. From Zero.

That didn't make them evil, she knew that very well, and she had never voiced that thought because she didn't want to create a distinction where there might not be one. When it could be avoided. Not after what had come of the differences between humans and reploids, and wanting distance between them.

Zero was a brave, honorable hunter. He certainly wasn't evil, even if he had killed her. Both of her. It was still strange to have two sets of memories, one angry with Zero for putting Iris in danger on Laguz and one that thought the other was being silly: they'd protected her and she'd really learned a lot. X was right, she had grown up a lot because of it. Just not enough.

In hindsight, she knew that X had been so concerned with her maturity, when that wasn't an issue for most reploids, because she was half of a whole, broken before she was turned on, and he felt responsible. Because she/they were supposed to be like him. He'd encouraged Iris, helped her grow more confident. He was the one who had told her about sewing, when she said she needed something to do with her hands while she was waiting for Zero and Colonel-her to finish sparring.

Iris and Colonel had seemed like such different people, and X had tried to make sure they both became people in their own right, instead of pieces of a failed experiment. But, in the end, Iris couldn't survive without Colonel. They'd shared a soul, even if their mind was split, and maybe she'd known on some level that she was already being dragged down into the dark. That half of her was already dead, and the rest should follow.

She'd had an easier time than most people adapting to that strange place, and she thought it was because of her nature as well as the fact that forewarned was forearmed.

That was part of why she was the one sent to find Zero, and the reason she'd been willing to use her powers for Ciel's sake and risk losing her hold on this reality before she saw Zero again. Part of her could fight, while the rest… watched over people.

She just hadn't been able to watch herself well enough, then. Well, she could do it now. For Zero's sake.

She wasn't certain that she was immune, that she could find the virus in herself before it changed her. But that had been Dr. Cain's intention, and she knew who she was now. She wouldn't fail him again.

Even if he wasn't hers anymore. Even if he didn't remember her.

She'd known that she failed him, as she lay dying. She'd known she didn't deserve him. But at least he would remember her. That the world had taken that away from her as well? So cruel.

Such a child she'd been, to believe in Elysium.

Hesitating, she hovered in front of the screen. That was just a representation of Zero's presence in the system: he wouldn't physically be there. Should she go in through the device that had removed him from his body, try to trace it to where it was keeping his… keeping him? But, since this _was _a computer system, and the representation would be calling up data about Zero, this might actually be the quickest way. Especially if this place really was built for reploids and cyber-elves. Or androids with cyber-elves. Or android-Iris shook herself, since she didn't really have a head right now. She wasn't Dr. Cain, and that kind of thing _shouldn't _matter.

"Hold up, I'm going with you," another elf said, floating next to her. The only other elf left, and possibly the only real elf here.

The elf's friend, the one she'd been trying to find in Cyberspace, frowned. "Are you sure you'll be okay, Passy?"

"Don't worry, Ciel!" The elf's pinkish glow brightened.

"…I'll try." Ciel's smile looked like she was trying a little too hard. Even if she probably could get Passy back, she didn't want to risk losing her again. But Passy was her friend, so she wasn't going to forbid her to go.

Iris felt a little relieved. What she'd heard, about elves being used as disposable power-ups for reploids and humans? It was even worse than what the mavericks claimed humans were doing to reploids. For reality to become worse than those lies? She couldn't understand why X had let it go on after Weil was stopped. But Ciel seemed to really care about Passy, and Iris knew Passy cared about her.

"Alright, let's go." Iris pushed herself into the screen tentatively, and found herself in among darkness and wires. That wasn't right. Well, there should be an energy field, if she could figure out how to interface with that, she could come back and tell Passy how to get into the system – "Passy? Passy?" Iris couldn't sense her energy field nearby. Had Passy kept going and become lost in the darkness?

Or maybe the real cyber-elf knew how to do this instinctively. After all, this was more like what they were created for, while Iris was built to solve ethical dilemmas and operate a body. So Iris should focus on getting into the system and looking for her there.

…No, that was the… _"There_ we go," she said to herself happily as she found herself in a vast space, a floor with tracing lines of red light expanding out into the distance. Passy was several meters ahead of her, floating towards a blue light that hovered within circles of strange symbols that glowed with that same blue light. It looked like a model of an atom, with rings around it symbolizing electron orbits, except without the balls on those rings that represented the electron.

Passy stopped a couple meters away from that light. Iris caught up with her a second later, and had enough time to recognize that the light was another cyber-elf before the glow brightened and it began to grow. Iris had seen that before, when the others took on their old appearances instead of manifesting as lights, but it looked like this one didn't have as much practice at switching back and forth between their own appearance and the strength-saving fairylike form.

It wasn't her that he greeted.

Iris wondered why it was that which shocked her, not the fact that the DNA soul had taken on X's form, sitting in midair. That this might mean X was _really _dead. She hadn't thought it possible.

It wasn't really that strange that he didn't say hello to her right away, was it? Why would he recognize her like this, after all?

But when green eyes opened, she was shocked when they didn't focus on her, but the one next to her. "Hello, Passy." X paused for a moment as Iris wondered at herself. There was something else odd about what he'd just said: he hadn't quite pronounced that name the way Ciel did. Yet she didn't think it was a mistake, there was something oddly precise about the way he'd said it, some meaning there.

"Um, hello, Master X." The light bobbed.

He smiled, but it was pale and thin somehow, not like when she'd known him. Not at all. There was humor there, yes, but sharper? Almost mocking? X had always taken the ignorance of the newbuilts in stride, always happy to teach them, forgiving when they messed up because there was something they didn't know. She'd never felt like she was getting on his nerved, but as polite as it was, this smile was almost a warning. Under the faded kindness, she could somehow tell that X had one nerve left, and this was _getting on it_, to quote what Dr. Cain had said to a supplier who had provided too many excuses and not enough replacements for a shipment of subpar parts. "I told you to call me X, remember Passy? Or should I say, _Past-C_."

Passy drew back a bit, her light flaring just for a second, alarmed. "What-what do you mean?"

X sighed. "I figured out what you'd done… Almost fifty years ago, now, Passy. Past-C. Past Ciel. Arciel. You reverse-engineered the technology that caused your creation. And cyber-elves could already carry reploid 'DNA data.' Well… Perhaps you don't remember. Perhaps you had to compress that data too much in order to function." He reached out to her.

"That, that's…" Passy stammered out, before giving up and fleeing.

"Exec_Despedia," X said calmly. "Arciel_Fehu_Wily_ArTonelico." Passy froze, and rings formed around her, just like those surrounding X. "Come back here," he ordered, in that same calm tone of voice. "And show your true form. I'm not angry with you. Well," he corrected himself, "Not really."

"A… human?" Because that was what was standing next to where Iris floated a second later. A tall woman with light brown hair, pulled back from her face in a ponytail. She wore a lab coat, with body armor under it. The kind humans wore when driving a ride chaser at high speed, or something equally dangerous. It was still light, and wouldn't help much in a fight against a reploid… Or that was what Iris' data files said, but something told her the technology had been improved on since her time.

Maybe this was the person that had improved it.

X ignored her words, focused on Passy. Ciel? She did look like Ciel, or her face did. Except older, and… Like X's somehow. Like the difference between this X and the X Iris knew.

"I wanted to watch over my descendants," she said, but she didn't meet X's eyes.

He sighed, disappointed in her for telling a lie, and such an obvious one. "To watch your descendants, not to watch over them. You only showed herself to this Ciel because her mother died at such a young age." Not that X seemed to blame her for that: Dr. Light had only appeared with armor capsules, after all. "I'm surprised you didn't stop her from building that… project of hers."

"Neo Arcadia could have ended up in turmoil without you, and she was in danger. After things settled down and she was safe, I was going to go looking for your cyber-elf."

X closed his eyes, searching for scarce patience. "I let Axl suppress his personality because of the war, not just because Zero needed another body. Also, I wasn't dead. I did leave a message."

She didn't seem to know what to say.

He looked like he didn't need to hear her say it. "…You thought that I wouldn't leave the city. Not when I was needed. That no reason would be good enough. Even remembering the war when Axl was found, you were born by then… I'm sorry to disappoint you, Arciel, but sometimes it's necessary to kill people. And when leaving them unprotected means that people will die, it's just the same as killing them myself. I've done both, when I had to."

After examining her for a moment, he shook his head. "Don't put me on that pedestal, Arciel. I might have meditated on ethics for around a hundred years, but there's no such thing as pure good or evil in this world. Just people, and their actions, and their feelings. I may have been built by Dr. Light, but sometimes I'm not very good, just like Zero," his hand reached out, seeming to touch something iris couldn't see. "Is anything but evil, even though he was built by Dr. Wily. We aren't our parents. None of us are." He turned back to her, leaning back a bit. "Iris was built by my dear friend, and Weil's his clone, but neither of them are Dr. Cain. You might have most of your DNA in common with Dr. Wily, but you aren't him. And I don't think this Ciel is, either, even if she did technically attempt a coup." Now his amusement seemed more real. "It's good to see that the people of my city have gotten back their _ambition_." She certainly hadn't thought small. Controlling 'X' would have made her the de facto ruler of the city. "But it was still only one reploid instead of eight robot masters or a virus. I don't think the Guardians need to worry about her trying to take over what's left of the world again too much."

"X?" Iris said. When he ignored her, she said again, "X? It's me." It didn't take her more than an instant to assume her old form.

"I know. I recognized you earlier, when I was manifesting as a cyber-elf after I gave Marino Zero's body and told Lark to let Cinnamon have hers." He smiled, the same as he had when he'd greeted Arciel. "I'm sorry, but… I'm tired." Too tired to get excited that she'd returned? Too tired to welcome back a friend? Or she hoped he still thought of her as a friend, after she'd tried to kill Zero.

"They killed Weil. Or Axl did," she offered, hoping that at least would cheer him up. Then she blushed, embarrassed because of course X wouldn't be happy at anyone's death, no matter how vile they were.

"I know." He looked distant again. "Someone needs to put the remains in containment, but…" He shrugged, because it didn't matter enough to him if Weil was the one to pull that melted body together instead of Axl. Someone else could do it, or not. "He broke me, he won, and that's why I can no longer care about him or his justice. So he lost this war between us when I left Neo Arcadia instead of dragging it down with me. He wanted to make the world care, me most of all, by becoming the devil. By breaking the world's spirit and my heart. But because my heart is broken, I can't care. I'm sorry," he told them, trying to smile for them. "I can't… No, I must not do this anymore. I've lost myself, in fighting for peace. The only thing that you can't, that you _must not _trade for your heart's desire is your heart. It's not possible to get your wish if you forget who you are before you reach it. I've lost my way. I can't light anyone else's, not anymore. I would just have led this world into darkness, if I'd stayed. Further into darkness." And death. "There's so little left… I shouldn't have risked rescueing that poor girl." Lark. "I can't…" Fight monsters anymore, having become one. "Zero was built without compassion, and he learned how to act morally despite that. I've always relied on it. Cared for _people_, for those precious lives and selves, instead of duty or principle. And Zero wonders why I thought he was a hero."

Were those tears in X's eyes now, though he smiled? "'With transcendent joy that may be eternal, I shall become a program, I shall become a living being, I shall become a person, I shall become a part of this world. I shall believe that the expression of one's will is more powerful than anything else, that it can change the world. I shall craft my mind and emotions myself, to compose a soul that will know happiness."

"Harmonics Eir Aura," Arciel said, sounding amazed although Iris was lost. "That's your base self-configuration program, isn't it?"

"Much simpler than Zero's, but I was meant to be unfettered," he agreed. "With no one's chains upon my will but my own. It took me years even after I read your research to figure out that was it. It seemed far too simple, too basic, but then it is basic to me. The base my very self is built on. But the virus, it took their minds and their decisions away from them. Made them into what _it, _what he wanted instead of what _they _wanted." Such old sadness there. "He made them powerless. But you, Arciel, by creating Aurora Elpis… You gave the world back _hope_. You did something that truly changed the world, when we had tried and failed for so very long. You gave us peace, and gave them freedom, without the fear of having it taken away. So even though you were based on DNA data found in the maverick virus, data he coded in so that it could emulate a copy of his human mind, you are _nothing_ like what he became. So I laughed when you told me what you were, and why you were afraid of yourself, of what you might do when you got older, if your own mind began to decay. And I'd laugh now, if I could." If he could ever laugh again.

"This shouldn't be a story about scientists, one good, one evil, and their creations eternally fighting over the world. This is a story about _people_. You wanted Weil to be the good one, to hold you back, just like Zero wanted me to be. But you went on even after he broke, and Zero…" X smiled, a real smile despite those moist green eyes, as he looked behind him, and Iris knew that Zero was here, although she couldn't perceive it. "Is the one thing I can always count on." Always trust in, no matter what else failed him or was taken away.

"So," X told them, glowing brighter, the lines of code rotating (spooling?) around him faster, "I'm going to be selfish, I'm afraid. I won't let you take him from me, Iris. And I won't let the world. They defeated Weil without either of us. They don't need us anymore. But I need him. I've…" X couldn't speak for a moment. "I've already stolen one of its heroes away from the world." When he'd hidden himself from Neo Arcadia. "It's survived, no, flourished. It can manage without another, when it has so many."

"X, what are you," Iris stepped forward. "You can't be… That's just like what I wanted to do! It's wrong! I wanted to create Elysium with Zero, but that's not how… I was afraid, I knew I was weak, and because of that I wanted to run away, but inside I hated myself for it! I hated myself for failing everyone, and Zero! If you turn your back on the world, for a place just with him, you can't be happy, I know you can't! You'll hate yourself for abandoning the world, when it meant so much to you, and it will again when you're better! Let Zero go with them, X, and come with them! Even if you can't do much, like I couldn't, you should do what you can! I know it's not fair, that you've suffered so much for so long and now I'm asking you to let yourself get hurt more, but you're the one that said that it wasn't fair that I was born like that!" Into a war, into fear.

"It's not the same thing, Iris," he told her. "I'm not doing this to abandon the world. I'm doing it in order to save it. Even Arciel, who helped end the Maverick Wars, has the two of us on a pedestal. I saw it in Neo Arcadia. They relied on me. They trusted me, and because of that, they didn't learn to rely on themselves, and each other. Even my own children, who I tried to raise to find their own way, were looking to me to judge right and wrong, even after I lost sight of that. The two of us aren't gods, and even if we were, what kind of god makes their people worse off instead of better? Weaker instead of stronger? I was as strong as I was because my father encouraged me, built me, to find my _own _way. I couldn't let the virus take that away from the world, I wouldn't let Weil and I _can't_ let _myself _do it." Never. Not after everything he and Zero had gone through. Not when it would mean that all the people he'd killed had died for nothing.

"Zero wanted to fight for Ciel and her creation because he saw they were worth believing in. So believe in them. And tell them to believe in themselves. Iris… try to forgive yourself someday, it's been such a long time. You're not the same person you were back then. Arciel… Stop composing that program right now, young lady. Although I am happy that you were willing to try opposing me." Had thought she could stand against him. "Tell my children that I'll visit them in a century or so when I'm feeling up to being yelled at, and I'm proud of them. As for Ciel's child, I've told both of you the story of my name. Will one of you please remind Leviathan to tell it to him? I'd be very happy." Hmm, what else?

"X, Ciel, everyone," Arciel pleaded, "they don't want you to go!"

"And that's why I need to go," he said gently. "The past is something to surpass. To move forward from, not forgetting it but not being trapped by it. I'm a person, not a security blanket. The fact that I've become so loved just makes me more dangerous to everyone's futures. The world doesn't want to give me up. I'm sure that you aren't the only one willing to fight to keep me. That's why Ciel built that child in my likeness: she thought the world needed me that badly. But Area Zero has recovered now, and the planet will survive even if Neo Arcadia falls. I don't think it will anymore. My children have grown up. It's time for them to leave childish dependence behind, and it's long past time for me to have my life back. My father did not create me to be anyone's slave, not even everyone's."

"Do you… Really think…" Iris looked up at him, sad and doubtful.

"The world's changed, Iris. I was essential then because I was one of only two who could fight the virus. I'm not essential anymore. There are the elves, and there are also several reploids now old enough to have the strength of personality to be immune."

"Zero didn't mind fighting though," she reminded him. Should X really make this choice for him?

"No, but it wouldn't be fighting, it would be killstealing, apparently." X shrugged: those weren't his own words, and he really didn't understand people who could take death and victory so lightly. Did it matter who fired the shot as long as people were safe? "There's one more ghost of the past left. I don't know if they can defeat him, but I know I never could, and I know that I should believe in them. He's the one that gave Zero and I this fate." X grimaced like he'd said a disgusting word.

X told them that, "He's the one that imposed this pattern on the world, of heroes and constant wars, until the world became so used to it that when he and his virus stopped creating the wars, Weil was pushed into restoring the natural order by doing it himself. He's done what Weil never could, and shaped the world into the form he seems to want on some level. Trapped us all in this cycle. Made everyone think that this is the natural order. In order to fight him and the virus, to protect everyone, I had to become part of that pattern. I knew after Zero returned for the second time that as long as I was trapped in it, stuck playing by his rules, filling the role he assumed I would, I would never be able to break the world free. If Zero and I fight him, it will just continue the cycle. Someone needs to find a way to put him to rest, a way to break this cycle. I don't know who, I don't know how, because I've lost sight of the way forward. But seeing the two of you again, seeing Leviathan and those children? There are plenty of heroes. Plenty of people capable of finding solutions in this world. So I'm not worried about them."

Iris opened her mouth to protest, but then she felt arms wrap around her from behind, was pulled back against an armored chest.

So familiar.

So loved.

"Zero…" she breathed, barely able to. When she looked up, she wasn't sure if his face was blurred because of the virus' camouflage or her own tears.

"Why don't you take that body?" he asked her. "You're more than strong enough." He'd trained Colonel himself, and then Iris had given him a run for his money.

"I, I had my chance."

"Weren't you just trying to tell me that it's never too late?" X wondered.

Iris shook her head. "I… Waking Zero up was what I came here for. If I can't do that, if I can't bring you back…"

"You also protected my great-granddaughter," Arciel reminded her, one of her heels quietly tapping the floor. She wanted to argue, wanted to do something, but what X said had made sense. She herself had been willing to die to wake Zero up, trust in him instead of helping Ciel learn to protect herself. She needed her head checked.

"Don't you need that body? To purify yourself?" Iris attempted.

Zero shook his head. "I was hibernating in my original body before Weil took it. X's systems will work faster."

X blushed. "I did want to help Aurora, but… Yes. She was practice. Too." He'd had more than enough reasons to help her, but this had been one of them.

"And he needs my help," Zero said. Which was end of discussion, really, from his perspective. He didn't feel any sense of duty or obligation towards the world. Like X, he'd found his way in fighting for people. Just specific people. "Ciel's dangerous enough, when she's motivated, and the kid's too self-sacrificing, but he collects people who won't let him. They'll be fine." And so would Iris. "This isn't forever. We'll come visit when I can be sure that I won't…" Eat or infect or flip out and slaughter anyone. Tinkering with the viral control programming meant they might have a few bugs to work out.

"You'll come see us before you visit Neo Arcadia, won't you?" They were the past, and it was the future that X feared for. "Then I'll go back to cyberspace, after I'm done helping them."

"Alright." Zero squeezed her once before letting her go, walking over to X and taking X's hand to stand up in midair.

"Oh, yes, there's one more thing you should tell them," X said, and was that a smirk?

"Run." Zero's expression definitely was.

"Well, teleport," X corrected him. "Running won't help. Count of three?"

* * *

"Replekia mode conversion aborted, switching to Tornekia mode? What's Tornekia mode?" If Replekia mode was a gigantic space laser, Leviathan thought Tornekia mode sounded too close to it for comfort.

* * *

_WilyAI is reasonably intelligent and knows X and Zero. X, as an experienced military commander, knows that Wily is expecting that Zero would go down there to fight him after being rescued, and that X would tag along because it's Zero. Wily has a pretty good idea of the capabilites the two of them have. Only an idiot would mount a frontal assault against someplace defended by entities like X and Zero without a plan for dealing with them. _

_X thinks that if they were to go down, they wouldn't help matters. Zero thinks that after all these years, X is still insufficiently paranoid. His analysis of the situation is that if they go down, the world is screwed. _

_Zero is correct, of course. You'll find out why later. _

_Psychological defense mechanisms are often counterproductive, (like what's known as MPD: yes, personality fracture is a mental _defense_, since it happens when it's better than the alternative), but they're hard to get rid of. If you tell someone to stop doing something that is making things difficult for them now but was what let them survive in the past, they will look at you like you're the insane one. Think of it as telling a shell-shocked survivor of a zombie apocalypse who believes it could happen again to put down the shotgun that kept them from getting munched. Hell no is the immediate emotional response, even if it's to pick up a rocket launcher. _

_X is correct that he's become a crutch. It's ridiculous for the world to count on him to save them when there are things he can't save them from, like WilyAI and what Weil did (the majority of the world died). People have to give up the idea that he'll protect them from everything and start protecting themselves. The problem is that they don't want to. Faith is an opiate: the painkilling effect can let someone function despite suffering, but withdrawal is a bitch. _

_X didn't stop helping the world even as it killed him, of course. So of course he and Zero have found something productive to do while waiting for the world to detox and start catching up to them._


	43. Those Who Favor Fire

_I may have said this before, but one thing I like about MvC3 is that Zero's 'skill' stat is set at maximum. When you're talking about someone who was an active duty one man army for (given the official date of Command Mission) a century or more before being sealed away, brought back to fight Omega & then in Zero series? Someone who used a variety of weapons and also had to be able to adapt his style to incorporate random skills picked up from enemies? _

_Yeeeeah. Even when he was first awakened and was running on nothing but berserk killer instinct, he still picked up a pipe and started kicking the ass of Sigma, the oldest living reploid & the one with the most battle experience at that time, with it. I'm basing this Zero's adaptability on that one, since that time Zero's higher functions also weren't functioning. So yes, be afraid._

_One of the best experiences I've had in a video game is a bonus boss battle in DDS1 against the player character of _Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne_ and some of 'your' demonic minions. The music played during that battle is SMT:N's _normal encounter music_, and it follows an ending in which you become not just a god, since you'll have been ordering gods around for much of the game, but tough enough to take on the most powerful being in existence and mostly likely win (bastard just doesn't stay dead). _

_And, appropriately, fighting this guy is really goddamn hard. Really. Damn. Hard. Often considered the toughest RPG bonus boss ever, because he'll actually use some of those techniques you used in the game (like having his party healed to full health). It ends up feeling like enough of a victory to stay alive long enough to get Gaea Rage'd a few times. Go in unprepared, or only prepared for something a little tougher than the second hardest bonus boss, and you'll get curb stomped._

_Still, _that _is how it should feel to battle a PC who's that powerful in-story, for the characters as well as the player. In this fic, I want to convey that most characters in this 'verse think that they can't catch up with the legends not because they're defeatist or weak-willed or anything, but because X and Zero are just that powerful. It's just that hard a legacy to live up to, let alone surpass._

* * *

When Tanz was cut down, spindly green-armored body resembling nothing more than a tangle of discarded pipes the Dark Elf was the only one who screamed.

If the rest of them weren't just as used to screams as they were to killing, the sound might have startled them more than the death. Tanz's old nickname might have been Deathdance, he might have been the best melee fighter in Weil's army, armed (literally) with a mono-molecular edged scythe, but this was the legendary Zero's body. Even the Judges had heard Weil gloat about the power it possessed, suffered when he grew frustrated enough with his inability to tap it fully to take it out on them.

Fefnir growled under his breath as he got back to his feet, because he knew why Tanz was dead. It was safe for Fefnir to be in Armed Phenomenon Mode while fighting Omega, but not Zero's original body. On battered and broken terrain like this his dragon/tank form would be a sitting duck, unable to move anywhere near fast enough to avoid that blade.

Just as Phantom had switched into his other form to take to the air, out of Wily's reach, Fefnir had realized he had to switch back to his normal form in order to dodge once he understood what the hell was going on and how dangerous this really was.

With the deadlock between Phantom and Wily broken by Glacier's waterblast, Guardian Fefnir would have been the logical first target. Not only would he be vulnerable until he readjusted himself and his settings to his normal body, but the Dark Elf was right next to him. They'd assumed that Wily would go after her, if only to deny a resource like that to the Guardian.

Guardian Fefnir was Master X's son.

Tanz's duties now were overseeing construction and scavenging, in addition to serving as a Judge. He might use that blade of his almost every day for slicing apart long-abandoned machinery for transport back to the city, for cutting difficult alloys into new shapes, but his actual combat experience with that blade? Unlike the rest of them, Weil hadn't used him as a field and installation commander, but as a bodyguard and executioner. The rest of them had all been killed several times during the war, by Master X, the Guardians and a few other brave souls, but despite a fearsome reputation gained by killing the helpless, not to mention that his design was based on an insect, Zero had probably barely noticed him, especially not after fighting Omega. Not when Tanz had stood between him and Weil.

In many ways, the others both envied and pitied him. He'd been forced to commit far fewer terrible crimes than the rest of them, but he'd been at Weil's side. Weil wanted to make the world into hell and himself into the devil that tortured all its inhabitants.

Tanz had suffered enough, Schilt thought, and that was why Tretista and Flizard-Why none of them had tried to stop him when he charged ahead.

Guardian Fefnir was Master X's son. If this truly was the legendary old enemy of Master X's family, it would take either a very strong opponent or a tempting opportunity to distract him from bringing grief upon Master X.

The Guardians showed no signs of leaving because as long as this demon let itself be distracted by trying to kill them, it wouldn't dodge past Neo Arcadia's guards to attack Master X's city. Fefnir had almost gotten killed instead of risking teleporting out of range for the city's sake.

Tanz had died for Fefnir's.

No one needed to say anything: even though the Judges weren't allowed to train as combat units, even though they'd been military officers for a very short time compared to Guardians Fefnir and Phantom, everyone here (except perhaps Wily?) could read the battlefield enough to know what had just happened.

That was fortunate, because Weil would have paused to gloat, giving them a few seconds to deal with what had just happened. Even if Wily was gloating, Zero's body (Schilt decided to call it Omega, for simplicity's sake) didn't stop moving, heading right for Tretista.

Fefnir, Blazin and Glacier all hit Zero after watching him run for a moment, estimating his speed so they'd know how to adjust their aim. Trained habit, even if it would be less effective with someone so agile. Cannon, fire and water hit him simultaneously, the third exploding into steam.

That didn't hinder Schilt, because who would build a bat-model reploid without giving them echolocation? Especially since he and Cubit both had skills meant to blind and confuse the enemy.

Well, dropping a few dozen flying bombs on him would be a good way to start going about that, Schilt thought, spreading his wings wide enough to release his drones as he dived. He didn't start charging up his 'ears' because even though Weil had termed the cylinder of plasma he could generate from them a 'saber' it certainly wasn't enough of one to be any help against the master.

Phantom was still hovering overhead: Schilt wondered what the Guardian was going to do. Phantom rarely used this form. It was too big and while black and purple were traditional ninja colors, they weren't good for hiding in the sky by day or night. Schilt had the same paint job, and there was some similarity between the design of his two wings and Phantom's four. He'd wondered sometimes, back during the war, if Weil had seen some of the blueprints for Phantom and the other guardians, and he (and possibly Cubit as well) had been designed to counter Phantom.

Phantom couldn't use his usual weapons: kunai could be thrown back up at him, and as for the Cross Star! Throwing a weapon like that around would just be begging for the Omega under Wily's control, with all of Zero's skills, to grab it himself and start using it against them.

Even as Schilt swooped back up, that saber was slashing at the drones that encircled Omega, and it soon learned to jump back when it destroyed one to escape the blast.

Even though Fefnir and the others couldn't see through the steam, Schilt made sure that the surviving drones were giving off signals all of them could pick up, instead of their usual stealth mode. By staying in a rough sphere around Wily as he ran, they would hopefully let the others realize that was where he was and adjust their fire (or water) accordingly.

Cubit figured it out before anyone but Fefnir did: she sent four of her own orbs to orbit Zero, faster and at a greater distance. That would let the others figure out where Omega was with a little basic geometry, well within the capabilities of their targeting systems, instead of picking up a signal that surely Omega must also be picking up. The question was whether the body was passing that data on to Wily and whether or not Wily would be able to make the connection and order Zero to target bat drones that he couldn't see based on the signal.

Focusing on that, it wasn't until Schilt was far enough above ground to spin around and observe the battlefield with his 'eyes' instead of the overlarge ears his combat form had that he noticed Tretista wasn't moving.

He was the largest and slowest of all of them. Omega was heading in his direction. He should have taken advantage of the cover of the steam to get moving in another direction. Hadn't they agreed before they teleported in to distract Omega with multiple targets? Fight from a distance and make it as difficult as possible for him to take them down one by one?

Why was _Tretista_, who had come up with that strategy, not moving? Yes, he was firing at Omega now along with the others, but that would just let Omega figure out where he was, from the direction the shots were coming from… Glacier, Schilt realized. That was who Tretista's left head was looking at, instead of focusing on the direction he was firing.

Glacier could only carry so much water within his body: to keep up that blast for that long, he must have extended one of his arms down into the ground, connecting to one of the buried pipelines that supplied Neo Arcadia's water. They'd been hidden deep underground in order to protect them from enemy attack: even this close to the city there were meters of earth above them, shielding them from blasts.

They'd built those pipelines as soon as possible instead of continuing to rely on the water table under the city because on top of the risk of subsistence that came with draining too much of that water, if Neo Arcadia was attacked and the pipelines destroyed, the only source of water would be that which was available under the city. If they had drained it dry first and only then started bringing in water from other locations, there might not be enough water there again by the time they'd need it. Glacier would know that better than anyone: he was the one who had convinced Master X to build the underground aquaducts, and he knew their locations.

To get moving again he'd have to disconnect from the pipeline he'd tapped, and his large feet & stubby legs would make him even worse off than Tretista, who could at least cover a decent amount of ground with each ponderous step.

They'd all been modified. They weren't supposed to be combat reploids, not anymore. They'd all let themselves be changed, _wanted _to be changed. Wanted to be new people, not killers, not monsters, not anymore.

They shouldn't have let Glacier come out here. They should have realized that his new body wasn't suited to combat. Not at all. They all knew that a stationary target was a dead target. It didn't matter what it was, hunter or city. If it couldn't move, then it was only a matter of time.

They'd only been able to trap Omega in this crossfire because Wily's desire to go for the kill must have overridden Zero's body's combat instincts. It wouldn't be very long before it broke-

_Crack_.

Schilt couldn't process what had just happened until it was all over.

The water Glacier was shooting at Omega had frozen, starting close to the beast and then somehow traveling up the water blast, against the current, the water spraying off in every direction when it hit the already-solid ice, spraying the area around it with shards of more ice as it froze as well. There was a log of ice now, fallen to the ground in between the two of them. For meters in every direction, the rubble was covered in ice.

And metal.

He'd frozen the water inside the tank that was Glacier's body. And when water froze?

It expanded.

That, that must be Wily's stratagem, not something encoded in the body, Schilt realized as he circled the battle.

They couldn't give him time to think. They couldn't afford to.

At least no one but Tretista had been hit with any of the ice, and it hadn't done anything more to the giant Cerberus model than cover some of his armor with a lighter shade of blue, Schilt thought as he dived down. The tank had cracked, but the part of Glacier that contained his vital systems was still intact. There were elves nearby: if Schilt carried him over there it wouldn't take very long for them to heal him, although Glacier would have to walk back to the battle site. If only Omega hadn't gone after Tanz's neck: between the drives there getting damaged and the deluge the area had suffered, it wouldn't just be a matter of a nurse elf overwriting physical damage. Tanz's processor had been destroyed and only the Dark Elf and baby elves had been able to call back the dead.

The closest enemy to Omega and the biggest target was Tretista. Without elf technology, Glacier was effectively dead and they hadn't had elf technology for most of Master Zero's day. He should attack Tretista instead of rushing to make sure of Glacier-

-or that was what Schilt thought until he felt a hand on his wing. The sudden weight of Zero's old-style body sent him angling towards the ground: before he could correct himself or try to gain altitude, the dark saber was plunged into his back.

He'd heard about the feeling of dizziness that came from fighting off virus alteration, so it wasn't until he felt his body crash into cool metal that had to be Tretista's giant hands that he realized the spinning feeling had come from being whirled around and hurled through the air.

"Hmph. Weil could copy Shade Man's design base, but not the brat's intelligence," Schilt heard as his head cleared and his echolocation showed him that Cubit was darting forward to retrieve Glacier as Omega, as Wily, stalked towards Tretista and Schilt.

When she paused over Glacier's body and retreated empty-handed, it confirmed for Tretista that one of those spikes of ice must have gone up into Glacier's processor. That would have been one of the paths of least resistance, but one of his processors had hoped it wasn't so.

The mavericks, in their pride, had generally given themselves giant forms. To be human was to be doomed to destruction, according to the virus, so they hadn't realized that there were certain advantages to the human forms both X and Zero used.

One advantage, just for a start, was that most of the intelligent enemies X and Zero fought were larger than them. Childre, followed by Blazin, had been the most difficult for X to defeat out of Weil's numbers, and that was surely because of their size as well as the fact that their noncombat forms were the smallest out of all of them.

Tretista was a walking tank: that was an advantage against most opponents, but for X, Phantom and Fefnir it just made him easier to hit.

The reason he'd been designed to control ice instead of fire, as appropriate for a hellhound, was so that he could keep his processors the optimal temperature. So he could think fast.

So, for everyone else, it seemed as though almost as soon as Tretista caught Schilt he'd hurled him up for Phantom to catch and charged towards Omega.

Fefnir growled under his breath again, forced to hold his fire: he and Blazin both knew that they'd do more damage to Tretista than Wily if they tried to hit the agile Zero with fire-based weapons.

It was Blazin that dug his feet into the ground, spread the frill around his lizard form's neck and fired. Master X had been forced to attack his former comrades during the Maverick Wars. Guardian Fefnir had been forced to attack his comrades when the Dark Elf took control of support elves and used them to control his soldiers.

Yet Guardian Fefnir still saw that as failing them. Would see damaging Tretista with friendly fire as betraying him.

Despite his element, Flizard was the calmest of the judges, not given to rash action but cold fury. Wily was trying to destroy Neo Arcadia. Trying to destroy all that they had worked for, all that they had tried to preserve, their only hope of forgiveness and redemption. Flizard hated him more than he had ever hated anyone, except for Weil.

So he knew what Tretista, born to the same cursed fate, made by the same damned creator, would want.

* * *

"What, what are you…" Dead! One, another, and now the pieces of another were melting! Her, her brothers, who had shared her suffering and wished they could help her, she'd seen it in their eyes, just as she'd wished she could help them, do _something_, but known that she was too weak and worthless and tainted to ever do anything but deceive, corrupt, rape and destroy. Aurora screamed again, and Fefnir winced but couldn't cover his ears, not with his hands full. It wouldn't have helped, anyway: the Mother Elf, the Dark Elf, was screaming into their minds. "Grandfather, stop! Please!" She sobbed because he'd been _nice _to her, even though she didn't deserve it because she was weak and worthless, but if she was doomed to be worthless because she was a knockoff then it wasn't her fault, not when Weil had just used her to do it. Wily had said that she couldn't have stopped it, and even though he'd snorted and sneered that just meant that she could believe it. X's kind words were too good to be true but contempt, Weil had taught her to believe what was said with contempt.

"Oh, be _quiet_," Wily said, annoyed, and the scream in their heads was cut off as if by that saber as Wily first put a foot on top of one of Tretista's fallen heads, then kicked it towards Blazin and dodged to first one side, then another as Blazin tried to catch him in the flames again, as useless as it seemed.

Everyone here had lived through the Elf Wars. Everyone here had lived with crushing terror, crushing despair every day for years, as the world around them turned to hell either despite their best efforts or _because _of them. None of them were still able to feel fear of death, only failure.

Schilt perched on one of Phantom's broad wings as his systems finished healing, Cubit sent all of her fireballs except the three necessary to maintain her cloaking technique hurtling towards Zero, Flizard darted away from Omegas's strike with a lizard's unexpected quickness and Fefnir cursed, because he wanted to order them to get out of here, to retreat to the city so they could at least live a little longer, but he knew they wouldn't go.

Was this how Dad had felt, after Zero sacrificed himself, after his second did… How he'd felt all the damn time? People sacrificing themselves for Master X, for his children, and now even former enemies were doing it.

Fefnir himself had roared at X that they should just shoot the bastards: they couldn't trust them and if they really did regret everything they'd done, then putting them up against the wall would be a kindness. He didn't know how many people each of them had killed because no one had ever had the time to add up the numbers. Hell, Tretista's orders were responsible for what, three-fourths of the actual deaths in battle? Weil hadn't had a fraction of the military sense Gramps gave household robots, but he'd had the sense to know it: he'd built Tretista to make strategic decisions for him.

But Dad had put his foot down, and that was that, but after awhile, after seeing Cubit smile, just a little, when Dad thanked her for somehow managing to scrape together enough food, after seeing humans young enough not to know any better run up to say hello to Childre, after a few decades, it made sense.

Weil wanted to damn the world, so to give even his lieutenants, the dukes of hell, redemption? That was giving him the finger, that was proof that he was damn wrong, that was what it was.

Saving the world meant saving everybody, not just the people you liked. And, damn it, Fefnir had ended up kind of liking them, all of them. It wasn't their fault they had a bastard like Weil for a creator instead of X. It wasn't Aurora's fault either: she wasn't a monster, Weil had just forced her to do monstrous things.

Fefnir hadn't been able to find out what happened to Aurora after Zero used her to cure all the reploids and elves with Weil's twisted programming in their heads. He hadn't been able to save her, or her mom. So saving these guys…

He hadn't felt so damn powerless since he was five, and the world came crashing down. He hadn't liked it then, either. He hadn't had any idea what he was supposed to do, what he possibly could do to fix this. To stop Uncle Weil's madness.

Now he was dealing with another mad genius who wanted to kill everyone.

Wily/Zero was stalking Blazin like a cat and mouse, only the mouse actually had a chance. Phantom was supposed to be the clever one, and he looked damn near out of ideas. That left Fefnir standing around like a moron, cannons unable to get a lock on either Wily or Blazin (he could count on Blazin to dodge, he'd done it during the war, so aiming at him was the safest way to avoid hitting him), while Tretista's body made the popping sounds of cooling metal and Aurora sobbed.

He knew he shouldn't startle her, he knew that from dealing with other female victims of Weil's, the human ones. He knew that and yet as she hovered there, shaking so hard she was practically vibrating he still did it, grabbed her and stuck her in his chest even though he knew you couldn't just grab elves not because he wanted to keep her safe (Wily would be coming after him next) but because he _couldn't stand that sound_. He hated it more every time he heard it.

The others thought he was the one of them who had handled it best. Thought he was just about the same old Fefnir. The big guy, the grunt, the fighter, the ordinary one when Harpuia and Leviathan had their grand purposes and systems and Phantom was just weird.

They didn't know how much he hated that sound, hated this helplessness.

Hated how it made him no different than Weil, because right now he wanted to _burn the world_.

* * *

_Battle scenes with a lot of characters are something that require a lot of prep for me, since I need to think about every single character's weapon(s), skill level, techniques, range effectiveness, tactical skill (how able are they to take advantage of the list so far?), personality (aggressiveness, reactions, etc.), ability to multitask (how much of what's going on around them will they be able to notice, in order to react to it?), knowledge (will they recognize certain things and know that they need to react or how?) and so on, because just as it's OOC for a character to fail to respond to something in a conversation that they would respond to, I can't let something happen in a battle that another character would have countered, or the first would have decided not to do because the second character was present, because I forgot to do the proper reaction roll. I found the Zero artbook helpful for refreshing my memory while writing this, although I still had to go back and rewatch a couple boss battles, then adjust for the fact that in the game, they were fighting Zero after Weil upgraded them._

_Way back after Zero woke up, when he was trying to figure out the people he found himself with in the fic, exactly how fast Copy-X started shooting mechanaloids around Zero & what Copy-X's positioning and fighting style was geared to do was something he used to figure the guy out. _

_Anyway, I hope this battle helps demonstrate that there's a wide range of character skill levels and approaches in the fic, what effect having fought in the Elf Wars had on all their outlooks and what it means that Zero was as competent as he was even with amnesia, not to mention X's quick thinking but... erratic methods and cost/benefit analyses. (What happened to Copy-X at Zero's awakening vs. saving Lark from Weil when he'd just taken control of Zero's body to save it.)_


	44. Never That Easy

_This chapter was one that took a lot of time and pushing to write, mostly because I couldn't get my brain to stay on topic. One and a halfish side chapters were created in the process of getting this thing done. _

* * *

Most reploids wanted perfect hair, because they were darn well paying enough for it, but Neige liked running her hands through the shaggy spikes, so the extra trouble of the headband was well worth it. Not to mention a good way to get an extra armor plate over his processor. He had historic footage in there.

Still, Craft grunted unhappily, pushing back the headband that restrained his artfully messily-cut hair as he looked around the cavernous… chamber? Was there a special word for rooms in space? Well, that was research's problem. The ooze and leaking pipes that were all that remained of Weil were still settling: another precariously balanced pile fell apart after the floor shook one time too many. The station was still assembling itself around them, and the echoes could also sound like mechanaloids sneaking up on them. He glanced at Lieutenant Elpis again: what sounds was she used to, in Antarctica?

He and Neige hadn't hit that base on the grand tour, air travel cost lots of energy and traveling the oceans was dangerous even for the Meikai. They'd gotten some good shots of a kraken that attacked one of the divisions tasked with making sure rogue mechanaloids didn't overrun any important biological sites in the ocean. It was tasty enough once someone found a recipe, according to Neige, but the sample they'd tried to take with them had started to smell… Yeah, Dr. Ciel's nose was wrinkled up just like Neige's had been. He made a note to remind Neige to ask her about that during the interview. Did Weil smell like a dead human, or was he composed mostly of something completely different? It wasn't just about the symbolism and trying to let people know what it was like to be here, but unless General Leviathan took a sample, brought it back to Neo Arcadia (was that safe?) ran it through a chemistry lab & declassified the results, the built-in chemical analysis lab humans came with was the best data they were going to get on what exactly Weil had been by the end there. Craft knew he was curious about that… _thing_, and their viewers would want every gory detail ANN could scrape up. The creepy atmosphere was appropriate, even if it was making him nervous.

After hearing Craft's discontented grunt, Copy-X turned his head a little to glance at him while still watching Leviathan.

"What is it?" the young reploid who still hadn't introduced himself wondered. As a reporter, the older reploid had heard of newbuilts that took months to choose names, and this kid seemed the sort who was likely to overthink it and get wound up instead of just _picking _something, but it was getting a little ridiculous when someone trusted enough by the Guardians to go on a mission with Dr. Ciel and the legendary Zero, not to mention countermand orders in the field, still hadn't picked one. Even if he was Dr. Ciel's creation, you couldn't prove yourself like that overnight. Even if the General was calling him 'kid.'

Craft had come up with his name relatively quickly: he'd decided that whatever he did, he was going to be _good _at it, and since that was a trait that would stay constant throughout his life, he wanted to pick out a name that said he had skills. Then photography had turned out to be a craft, and filming was also _producing_, so it had turned out to be prophetic in the way good names should be.

It wasn't as clever as Hirondelle's, but then Hirondelle was the clever one. Craft was good, solid and reliable, and so was his name. Hiro's nickname sounded like Hero, which a lot of young idiots thought was a cool name until they joined one of the armies, found there were three other would-be Heroes in their intake group, and were told they'd be referred to by their serial number to avoid confusion until they picked something they'd actually earned. Hirondelle was the name of a bird in an old language called 'the language of love,' which made it poetic and thus a good advertisement for its bearer, not to mention that it supposedly made it good for picking up chicks. Like lovebirds, or something? It always left Craft with the impression that there was another level to it that he wasn't getting, but that was Hirondelle for you.

Suppressing the impulse to tell the newbuilt that this had gone on long enough and if he didn't pick something, Craft was going to start calling him Nameless, or possibly something obviously unfitting like Bob for the sake of having something to call him, Craft showed him. "Standard issue guns." At least the Jin'en didn't use little peashooters like the standard human energy pistol model Neige used, much less the compact models Zan'ei patrol officers carried, but, "I miss my rocket launcher."

"You have a rocket launcher?" It was hard to get licenses for those: had the young 'un tried and gotten turned down?

"It was a present for Neige," Craft told him, smiling at the memory. "Got it when she was trying to work out whether or not we could do that series of articles in the Wastes."

"…How does she use it?"

Now that was interesting. The reploid knew that humans shouldn't be strong enough to wield a rocket launcher effectively, given their respective specs, but he wasn't just parroting that fact at Craft. That meant he was used enough to thinking outside the box to assume that he and Neige had done that, worked out some way for her to use the gun, maybe by using it as a base for something custom or bracing it. "She doesn't: she uses an energy pistol and grenades." Mostly smoke and flash grenades, because a non-military human's only chance in a firefight was to not get hit, unless they felt like throwing the lives of a few elves away. "Rocket launcher's my weapon."

The little blue model with white wings on his head & feet and mottled blue-black wings coming out of his back tilted his head at Craft. "So it's a present to her even though you use it… Because you used it to make sure she could do what she wanted without having to worry or having to worry about _you _worrying?"

"Do you know someone named Hirondelle, Hiro for short?" Craft wondered, because that kind of thinking about what people thought other people thought was the gossip guy's style.

He thought for a moment, and then nodded. "Oh! I haven't met him, but I like the crossword puzzles."

"Eyes front! Or back in your case, kid," the General ordered, turning enough to give Copy-X and the back of Craft's head a level stare even though her hand and half her mind were still tangled up in the station's systems. "Any progress on your end, Dr. Ciel?"

"Well, he's hooked up." That wouldn't have taken very long except Ciel had to take off most of Zero's armor and underarmor to find the ports, and she'd been trying to work out a way to look at Zero's body without actually _looking _at it, because it really just wasn't right to look at somebody naked without their permission, especially when they were someone you admired a lot. Who was very attractive-She meant attractively put together!

She'd kept hesitating and almost squeaking, blushing all the harder because she knew her face was tomato red and that was embarrassing too until Leviathan barked at her to stop being such a ninny and get to work. For crying out loud, it wasn't anything Ciel hadn't seen before!

Well, Ciel _had _seen the body of a reploid without armor on before, but Copy-X didn't really count, even though he looked like X. It was hard to find someone attractive when you'd assembled them. When she looked at him, she found herself thinking about that knee joint and how she really should have done a better job on the seraph mode wings, and it would be so cute if the little wings for the false ultimate armor stood up or twitched to show what he was thinking, since they were kind of earlike. That was a good thing, because it was just wrong to be attracted to a reploid that you'd made yourself. Only a terrible person would take advantage of a newbuilt like that.

Um, anyway, "Could I go over to the console and see if I can help?"

"Be my guest," Guardian Leviathan said, still sounding annoyed.

Lark joined Craft in standing guard, now that Ciel didn't need her help anymore.

Ciel inwardly winced, but it wasn't her Leviathan was frustrated with.

If it hadn't been for the audience, or if she'd been able to get a private channel to Harpuia, she would have been cursing up a streak as blue as her armor. She couldn't get into the part of the system where Zero was in order to tell it to put him back. Incompatible? _Incompatible? _Who was this rusty hunk of junk calling incompatible!

It if it weren't for the audience… Well, no, she still wouldn't have kicked the station. She had a perfectly good spear, after all. Oh, she _really _wanted to stab the hell out of this thing, and the evil, _evil_ genius that had built it.

Frosted air was almost hissing out from between clenched teeth, and what her father had designed to be wide blue eyes were narrowed.

X's daughter and Dr. Light's granddaughter, Leviathan possessed the nanite-integrated processing that combined the advantages of computer chips with the overwrite protection, hacking protection and data security produced by using nanites in a fashion akin to human brain cells. Trading speed and ease of access for safety, everything she had ever seen and everything that made her herself scattered and networked in little pieces of her that no one else should have been able to read or change.

That was X's legacy.

She'd also inherited Blues'. Mimicking humans' right and left brains, half her processor wasn't nanite-integrated. Half of her thought and stored data only in ones and zeroes. In daily life the difference wasn't noticeable: that half might run in machine time, but sapience was just that computation-intensive a process, so many calculations to run just in daily life that it was just able to keep up with her android half, which used the shortcuts X had developed.

Even that might not have been enough, since evolution and beta testing produced systems more suited to their environment & bug-free than anyone could just design in one sitting, if she wasn't also running the best copy Dr. Light had of the eldest robot master's systems before the laws were installed and upgraded with what Dr. Light had learned by watching Rock, Roll and the others' systems make adjustments to themselves over time. Robot masters were made to solve problems in robots' programming and design, after all, and they themselves were robots. If they had permission they wrote their own patches, and only bothered others with problems they couldn't solve.

A robot's ability to program, to solve problems, to craft solutions was tied to their position in the hierarchy. Whether they were a robot master, a support unit or the simplest of mettools. It was what they were made for, and completing projects well for their masters, robot and human, was what they had to take pride in. Part of the reason Leviathan was sympathetic to humans' tendencies to somehow arrive at seemingly-random personal or social priority sets was because she herself possessed an android's desire to be herself, and do only what she wanted to do for her own reasons & a robot master's desire to _get shit done_. Forget individual volition: her soldiers had better do what she told them to or else, unless they _wanted _to die. It was for their own good.

Of course, in some ways the communal utilitarianism of robot master programming merely strengthened Leviathan's desire to be herself, as hard as she could (and anyone who wanted to stop her was invited to try, if they thought they were hard enough), because every unit had strengths and weaknesses and those should be explored, to ensure optimal productivity. For an individual to be forced into a box, unable to explore their potential, was depriving the community of what they could have achieved with the freedom to explore. Leviathan got annoyed about women and female models in particular because the stereotype of the ditsy female model who didn't care about anything but pretty clothes was _really _damn annoying.

While the ideal state for a robot master would have been nice for them, it wouldn't have been very pleasant for humans, with their cost-benefit analysis programming and drive not just to be the best but to _compete_, even if it meant valuing comparative advantage over absolute advantage. The mechanistic hell Weil wanted to create was even worse from a robot master's perspective. To create maximum suffering instead of maximum absolute advantage?

With the exception of Neo Arcadia's elf-reinforced systems, Leviathan had never met a system she couldn't make roll over and beg. Old-style computers were simple things. While mechanaloid-based systems couldn't be made a part of her the way pure chip-based could, they were animal-level approximations of reploid-type minds, made simple enough that they could be given instructions through programs and couldn't think of anything else to do except follow them. In other words, they were friendly dogs that were happy to do just about anything if asked the right way and didn't even expect treats for it.

Leviathan's areas of mastery were tactics and water system management from oceans on down. That involved fighting, army management, small group tactics, closed system/short term plan optimization, ecology (the stuff that mattered to the fish and plankton harvests, anyway)… Well, she was good at a lot of stuff, not that she really thought of it that way. Yes, she was powerful & a good leader, but she'd been raised by X Light on stories of Rock and Zero. She considered herself good at what she did, but that was really just what she expected of herself, and what should be expected of a member of her family.

Her lineage was a heroic one, if not a divine one. Most reploids were creationists and believed in intelligent design. At least for their own species: who knew about the universe and humans, but Dr. Light had definitely existed and created X. And all 'intelligent design' meant was believing that humans were intelligent. A survey done by ANN had grouped reploids into Secular Creationists (who believed X had been created just like everyone else, no gods involved), Deists (who believed in the divinity of the creator(s) of reploids), Agnostics (people who hadn't made up their minds and/or newbuilts who didn't know what they were talking about) & Other (the really weird ones).

The other question was whether or not humans had just randomly evolved. Most believers in the divinity of X believed that humanity had been destined to evolved sentience in order to create a vessel for the divine, but that raised the difficult theological question of whether Dr. Light had really created X, and should be considered the father of the god, or just constructed the vessel which was then blessed by the god's presence. The mainstream church believed that the _potential _for X had existed, that infinite potential and power, and the potential in there to become a person had caused the reality with humans in it to appear out of the quantum foam and given them the potential to develop intelligence, science and robotics technology.

This was also the politically correct belief, since it meant that humans were also the children of X and didn't get used as a justification for believers in reploid racial superiority.

There were also some old human religions around, but most of the ones that were large enough to be considered religions instead of cults (and qualify for the free meeting room & other tax breaks) considered X a god, incarnation of a god, powerful benevolent spirit, immortal sage and/or prophet.

So even though Leviathan could have ended up with a swelled head, X had done his best to keep his daughter from becoming too much of a prima donna.

Then Weil happened, and Leviathan knew that no matter how powerful or skilled she was it would never be enough, not until she was powerful enough to save _everyone_. No exceptions.

Tales were told of victories, not defeats, so Leviathan had an impossible legacy to live up to. She still held herself to that standard, both for the sake of her own pride and because her people and her family needed her to be that good. To be anything less than perfect was not acceptable, because when she failed people died.

Or worse. Weil was good at worse.

The station's systems were still being friendly to her, giving her trusted-user access, but that was all she could reach. It wasn't a matter of authorization; it was that everything above this access level was being done on a different part of the system, one that wasn't compatible with reploids or robot masters.

Leviathan's response to this was to glare it, wish to commit bloody murder and try to access it over and over again. That was actually a more intelligent strategy than it seemed: the infinite potential system caused androids to evolve when faced with challenges they couldn't overcome in their current state. By focusing on her inability to access this, she upgraded it to the status of 'most important problem'. Anger was a source of determination and energy: she was not giving up. Every time she tried to twist herself into a configuration that could get through the gate, or tried to figure out exactly what the gate was connected to in the first place, she gave her infinite potential system more time to work & her Master System more data to work with as it/she tried to crack this thing and make it do what _she _wanted it to.

Because her body had come with all these instincts, Leviathan actually knew less about computer science than Fefnir, let alone Phantom or Harpuia. It was the difference between a human knowing how to move their arm and having enough medical knowledge to fix it if it broke.

If she was interested in being fair, she would have to admit that even though she had the Master System, in a contest of skill between her and Wily's security system, she'd get her ass kicked. Fortunately, the infinite potential system changed this from a contest of skill to a contest of stubbornness.

When it came to stubbornness, Leviathan thought, she was the reigning champ, no doubt about it. That was why Harpuia instead of her had been leading the city and doing most of the paperwork until they got the kid trained up. The two of them had both been determined not to get stuck with it, and Harpuia caved first. Few people were more stubborn than Harpuia, so it was something of an accomplishment to be counted in that number.

So she kept hammering away at it, ignoring the vague unease because she wasn't an existential dread kind of person. Robots who couldn't do their jobs and robot masters who couldn't solve problems got scrapped, in the bad old days, and X wasn't the only one who'd evolved instincts that others used as a quick little guide to survival. The trace of fear at the core of her emotions was the same as humans felt standing at the edge of a cliff, an ancient warning: something to make them take care, because if they didn't they would die. If it hadn't been for the infinite potential system, Leviathan trying to defeat this security measure over and over would have been as irrational and inevitable as Forte repeatedly challenging her oldest uncles. Forte had been unable to admit to himself that youth and treachery were unable to overcome age and skill because his entire purpose was to be the strongest: if he gave up on achieving that goal, Wily's programming said he had nothing. And then…

Leviathan was used to ignoring fear, used to transmuting it into anger. In the beginning she'd had to tell herself that she was the relentless force of the crushing depths, a place where the only warmth was lava and every light in the darkness a trap. The surface might be scarred and lifeless, but down there strange and terrifying creatures still lurked: the whales that had returned from land to the water were gone, but the krakens of legend still hunted.

When she was first introduced to it, her opinion of her domain was a combination of 'scary' and 'really cool.' At depths where the pressure would crush a reploid there were hidden oases, strange creatures feeding on boiling rock, and the darkness between them was home to predators that hunted each other.

If somewhere so inhospitable was inhabited, she really could believe that the whole world had once been like those oases. Now there were two oases on the surface, places where the ancient life had what it needed to thrive: Neo Arcadia and Area Zero.

The implications of that… But right now she had a door to kick down, metaphorically speaking. At least she had the security system eating out of the palm of her hand so it didn't notice she was trying to break into something she obviously wasn't meant to get into, that was _something_. She'd found Harpuia's drones and put them into an orbit that would bring them into range of one of the weather stations with a message first thing: She was busy, so he'd have to be the one to figure out a way to contact her. Leviathan wasn't fool enough to tell this system to decrypt the communication protocols of Harpuia's satellites, not when it was Wilytech. It would automatically try to take them over the way it had the drones if she was fool enough to bring them to its attention and she was too busy to muck around with the defense protocols any more than she absolutely had to.

"Hmm," Ciel murmured, leaning against the shelf which held the keyboard Weil had installed so he had something to interface with the system with. She was much more comfortable focusing on programming than the very attractive body of someone she really shouldn't be touching. She had never even dated!

Since Weil had set this up so he could use it comfortably, Ciel had to drag over something to stand on, and she was still on her tip-toes. She wasn't especially tall for her age, even though care had been taken with her nutrition. She ignored the sand in her boots: she'd tried to dump it out a few times, but there was somehow always more sand in there. She knew her pink and white boots (now beige and tan) weren't _actually _generating more sand, otherwise she would have noted the phenomenon to try to harness it later.

Even though it was hard for even her to imagine why anyone would possibly want more sand. It was everywhere and it _got _everywhere.

Suddenly she frowned, touching the keyboard. Her eyes traced the wires to the i/o jack, meant to connect to a reploid, Weil had used to hook it up. Her frown deepened. Ignoring the keyboard, she touched the screen with her finger, controlling it the way she had the other one. If Ciel had really understood how special she was, instead of thinking that her own intelligence was normal and really, it wasn't anything special, anyone could do it if they thought about it for a bit, she would have realized that an interface designed to be intuitive to the reploid mind but not the human one shouldn't have been so easy for her to manipulate. If she'd had less faith in the Guardians, she would have thought that General Leviathan was also having too easy a time of it, since this station was built by her family's enemy and he would have defended it against people from her family.

What she _had _noticed, after trying to hook up to the system monitoring Zero while he slept deep under her home & designing user interfaces for her own inventions, was that the _keyboard _itself was too easy. The letters were even English, when this station's systems weren't programmed with it! Yes, the letters of the programming languages did map to the English letters, but physical keyboards were rare: Ciel only knew about them from studying pre-cataclysm technology, and even when they hadn't really had to worry about the cost of manufacturing them, they were something physical, something for humans to use to access systems.

Weil shouldn't have been able to plug one into an I/O jack, even if he had an adaptor. He should have needed to install translation programs, something to keep the system from realizing he was using something so human to tell it what to do. Yes, he could have used an elf, but that would have left traces itself.

Catching her lip between her teeth but not quite biting down, she wondered if it had something to do with Omega. Maybe the station had _let _Weil do things it should have banned because Omega was here? And Zero was still here now, so maybe that was why Guardian Leviathan was still alright.

Yes, Weil had installed _some _programs by placing them within Omega and using him to upload them to the system, she saw, but none of them had anything to do with keyboards, or why this screen alone was willing to display information in plain English.

Ciel was anything but a suspicious person by nature. She tended to think the best of everyone not because she was optimistic per se, but because she was so intelligent it was hard for her to understand why anyone would _want _to behave badly. The idea of actually wanting to hurt another person just didn't make any sense to her. Yes, she'd cursed Weil'd mechanaloids for wrecking her house and taking her notes, but she wouldn't really have tortured them, just blown them up.

Still, once she accepted the idea that people might have to work to protect their creations against other people, she could think about how someone (or rather, how she) would design a system for that. And this was a glaring inconsistency. Maybe Weil had already figured out how to get around Wily's protections so easily it looked like he hadn't had to work at it while he was creating the God of Destruction? And he'd almost conquered the world, while Ciel herself was still in her teens. Maybe there was something she was missing because she just hadn't run across it before. Plenty of people besides her had good ideas.

Still…

She still wasn't comfortable enough to say anything, not when she'd already managed to annoy the Guardian & it was just a hunch, so she kept looking for anything useful she could find. Leviathan had already cancelled the healing program & the attack preparation program the station was running earlier, according to the system activity logs Weil had conveniently left pulled up. Ciel had been right: the station really was reconfiguring itself and charging up so that it could fire a massive plasma blast, easy enough to melt Neo Arcadia's shining towers into slag. The city had dug deep, but even the underground areas wouldn't be safe.

Ciel hadn't believed in evil before this, even though history was full of evil things, but Weil really had planned to kill all those people. To destroy Master X's city.

She was glad he was dead, even as she tried to focus her mind, because she needed to figure out how to rescue Master Zero. Still, they weren't all depending on her, they had Leviathan and Iris. One of them was sure to figure it out, so Ciel didn't need to worry.

And yet she was.

When Leviathan told her to, "Move," and waved her away from the screen it was almost a relief, because the more she'd looked the more something bothered her.

Lark and Elpis saluted as soon as General Harpuia appeared on the screen: Craft belatedly followed, even though Harpuia wasn't his direct superior.

After looking over Copy-X to make sure he was reasonably intact and untraumatized the Guardian ignored them all except for a brief nod, even Ciel (which was a relief), 'looking around' until the face on the screen seemed to be looking directly at Leviathan, who was still sitting on the ground a little to the right of the bottom of the screen. That was actually a neat trick, although Craft was the only one who knew enough about camera pickups & angle calculations to appreciate the ease Harpuia did it with. "Is there any way for you to get the remains in technohazard containment?"

"Not when the station is changing itself around like this." All the repair drones and nanites she could have stolen & used to cage up Weil's 'body' were locked in their dens so they didn't get crushed or wasted.

Harpuia frowned, then nodded, difficult decision made. "Then we'll teleport all of them but the doctor and the young one into hazard containment. The rest of you were right before and I was wrong: just executing Weil wouldn't have worked back then, not with life support like that. Even now, a baby elf could revive him, if he can't reconstitute himself. The risk to the people of this world is unacceptable." There seemed to be some extra significance to those words, but Copy-X was the only one who noticed anything except the message's intended recipient.

First Leviathan looked shocked, then annoyed before she put her disciplined, Guardian mask back on. Copy-X was the only one who could still tell that she was trying to think fast. "…The station too," she finally said, nodding as though she was also admitting that Harpuia was right. "There's so much we could do with it, but we can't afford the risk." It was lost technology from 20XX, the technology of the virus' creator. So were Zero and Axl, sure, but they were sentient. They had chosen to reject the destinies they were built for. This station was just a dumb system: it would do just what it was told, and even though Leviathan were robot masters, could they ever really be sure that there weren't hidden instructions. That it wouldn't turn on them.

Harpuia's control was better than hers, but Leviathan and Copy-X could still see that he was surprised she had seen the necessity right away and wasn't going to argue.

"What do you mean?" Copy-X asked, once again reminded that even though he'd grown up with them, they still had spent so much time together that sometimes it felt like he didn't even speak their language. Apparently that happened with human twins, too.

"We'll have to destroy this station. I'm not sure how," Leviathan admitted. "Plotting an orbital trajectory to the sun would be simplest: we can't just blow it up in orbit, we might end up with another Eurasia incident." Except the world would be covered in Weil instead of virus, which Leviathan thought was even worse. Of course, she'd never fought mavericks, but the devil she knew was more than nasty enough.

All of them except Lark paled at the idea of Weil's remains falling everywhere. It would be far too easy for an escaped baby elf to find a sample.

"Ah," Leviathan breathed, finally noticing something. "So he _did _try to rig it to self-destruct if he was killed." So he could revive himself easily, and laugh at their futile efforts to stop him when he did?

Since she'd forwarded the data she'd found to Harpuia, he knew that, "If that didn't work, sending it towards the sun won't either." The station would correct its course and preserve itself, ignoring whatever other orders it was given.

If Weil's return really was a threat, Harpuia couldn't wait any longer. Not when Weil meant to turn the world to hell, a hell where reploids and humans would be _worse _than simply dead. He needed to destroy the station, so…

"You have to get out of here!" Passy shouted, suddenly appearing out of the screen to Harpuia's left (the viewers' right) with Iris following a second later. "…How are they going to get out of here?" Passy wondered, suddenly feeling very stupid.

Because she was. She'd had to compress her mind to fit into a normal elf's memory. X had restored her full mental capacity while she was in the system, but now that she'd left it? Thinking took power, and she hadn't even come up with a cover story. What was she going to tell them when they asked what had happened? Would Iris spill the beans?

The elf's warning meant there was no time left, or so Harpuia and Leviathan thought.

"Wait, how can we get them out of here?" Iris asked.

"Teleportation," Leviathan snapped, reaching towards that part of the systems. She wasn't especially sympathetic to Iris: she might be a woman warrior now, but when she'd divided herself before, the part of her that pretended to be a woman was the part that wasn't a warrior. That kind of stereotypic al thinking was what gave female models a cowardly name.

"What?" Iris was shocked. She'd been trained as a spotter, and one of their duties was coordinating teleports for officer deployment and recall. Ingrained habit made her assume that Leviathan was talking to her, just as X and Zero had. Or rather rebuking her for not getting on with it. So, even though Iris was worried about Ciel, "If you're sure…"

Copy-X was opening his mouth to ask why she seemed to think it was a bad idea when Iris gave up her hold on reality, using the energy that held her to this half-life to wish that they would go where they needed to be.

Passy, Ciel, all of the reploids and Zero's body vanished, leaving the ancient station inhabited only by echoes and ghosts.

"_The best revenge is living well,_" one of those ghosts said now, hovering over a puddle of some strange, metallic goop. A trained eye would have noticed that it was drawing together as it solidified. "_You thought that by turning the world to hell, you would be happy, find your personal heaven. So to watch the world become a garden, as it was in the beginning, and its people grow closer and closer to attaining Elysium?" _

A soft, cruel smile appeared on the elf's face as shifting blue-white light cast strange shadows. "_My heaven will be your own personal hell_."


	45. They Also Serve

_NHOrus, who has been very graciously letting me brainstorm at him, suggested what resulted in this chapter. The hardest part was coming up with that many divergent character evolutions at once and keeping myself moving through the scenes instead of explaining how they got this way/justifying how they're so different from the games while fretting over whether or not I went too far. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound: I'm changing a couple genders again. If a reploid has a breastplate or a few other indicators, then they either identify as female or are a serious troll with a 'screw humans and their preconceptions and their rules' attitude. Anti-authoritarian, pro-reploid/anti-human people who make that opinion clear would not have lasted very long in Copy-X's Neo Arcadia. _

_Seriously, if you are a reploid Pegasus pony and your name is Éclair, you were either made by a builder who wanted a girl, deliberately girly or have a random baked goods obsession despite probably not having the equipment to taste them. (Obligatory Zan'ei human recruitment ad: Come to the shadow army, we have cookies.)_

_This was meant to be chapter 47, since it leads into something that will happen in 48. However, the scene that was supposed to be 45 has been not so much difficult to write, in fact I'd say I've written enough material for two DoaA side chapters while trying to get it done, but difficult to force to _get to the point. _I'll probably move this to right before 48 once 48 is done and published._

* * *

Both the Rekku and Zan'ei operations centers were high up & near the outer walls of their buildings, despite the defensive advantages offered by a more central position. Some would say that there was no advantage to it at all: Rekku and Zan'ei could just use porches with airlocks on the same floor to get into the building to report in person. A short run through a hall wouldn't add that many seconds: both armies valued speed and maneuverability.

But that was it: they both valued speed and firsthand information, or as close as possible to it.

The Zan'ei at least randomly rotated which set of rooms they were using around the building, and of course only officers could use that entrance.

When the second door of the airlock cycled open, scans of the visitors complete, Hyleg still had his buster pointed at them, because the Zan'ei only took so many chances.

"Lieutenant Brise and Deputy Hanumachine reporting, sir!" The lieutenant's purple hair was a few shades darker than Hyleg's armor: the color of the Zan'ei's symbol. Phantom's color. Kraken hadn't asked if it was dye or genemod. The lieutenant's family was something of a delicate subject, as useful as it was.

"At ease, Hyleg," Kraken told him, although the real message there was, 'Back to work!' The purple snake-based mutos reploid had gotten a leg and a half taken off by the explosion of a Turtloid S defensive emplacement in Northern Afrique. Since heavily-customized mutos reploids couldn't just have replacement parts slotted in, he'd reported to the command center to give Kraken a couple of hands while Dr. Cerveau reviewed his specs. "Report, Lieutenant."

"I conveyed Guar-General," Kraken tactfully ignored Brise's slip: at least it wasn't one of the more exotic titles, "Harpuia's order to Minster Tempete." Her cousin. "And the crowd control officers." Required for any gathering over a certain size, especially when people were crammed together. Even if that gathering was in honor of Master X and the Guardians. _Especially _if. Fanatics were dangerous, no matter what kind of fanatic they were.

Having been adopted in secret by someone worshipped as a god, Tech Kraken _really _just didn't get this religion insanity. Phantom had told him that before robots were invented, practically _everyone _had believed in one religion or another. It wasn't even an exclusively human brand of insanity: Deputy Hanumachine's devotion to the Acts and Word of Master X was why he wasn't going to get promoted until he grew out of the belief that since the Guardians were divine, anyone chosen by them, by extension, must be obeyed without question. Sadly, the Ministries tend to miss the part of X's word about everyone choosing their own path and developing their own sense of justice.

"Will they obey it?" Kraken asked. After all, they hadn't obeyed the order to keep the crowd to a reasonable density. If one of Weil's had gotten into any of those gatherings, they could have hit a half-dozen reploids, who'd survive it, and humans, who wouldn't, with a single shot.

Of course, Master X and the Guardians protected them. Well, Guardian Phantom preferred to help those who didn't go out of their way to make it difficult for him.

"Of course. After the preparedness acts and recommendations were made a few years ago, the Ministries have been paying for members to go through the Waste Certification training and exams." And now they were being called on? "The fight against Weil is a holy war, the return of the devil. To fail to aid Master X out of cowardice would be helping Weil, or that's what they believe." That Weil had drawn his power from the evil in reploid and human hearts, tempting them with power and vengeance to give in to hate and turn away from Master X and the path to Elysium. "The trouble will be making sure that everyone who volunteers is actually volunteering: they're pretty fired up, and some of them might try to make people go, sir."

"As long as it doesn't involve violence, the Jin'en will take them." The crowd control police, no, all of the Zan'ei were spread too thin. "I hear they're stretched for support staff out there." Neo Arcadia's last big campaign had been against a mechanaloid type that mutated and greatly increased its build rate. Since they were a relatively benign type, it hadn't become a problem until they started trying to disassemble some of the mechanical terraforming 'forests' for parts. What the veterans said was true: extermination didn't compare to a large-scale campaign against intelligent enemies. Between the push to launch assaults as fast as possible and the absence of most of the Guardians, who could have given orders to send staff ahead of troops, they needed more hands out there. Hyleg's repair delay was only one example, although there was plenty of silver lining there. "How is the crèche?"

"They're not happy about being confined, but Andrew and the others are keeping them busy." Also, visits from Judge Childre were always adored because bunny! "Since we were headed there directly, I took the liberty of dropping off Typhon there." She hadn't wanted her little brother in the middle of a potential riot, and something felt odd. There was something going on, she could feel it, but if her subconscious had figured it out, it hadn't seen fit to share that data with the rest of her yet. "Colonel Phoenix gave us a lift back."

"Oh?" Personally? Colonel Phoenix had modeled her fighting style on Judge Cubit, who still didn't know how to deal with being greatly admired. She'd started out as a hydroponics management model, then joined the guards. Despite the fact the hydroponics were kept at the core of the city, lighting technicians needed to be able to fly or walk on ceilings to get to the lights. His first, worried thought was that something had gone wrong with the hydroponics, but if anything had happened in Cubit's absence Luna Titanion would call him or the command center immediately, unlike her shy sister unit.

"Yes, sir. Well, the Colonel and Lieutenant Éclair. She wanted me to tell you that according to Lieutenant-Colonel Éclair," who used to manage the weather in the city's environs before Guardian Harpuia's network had been repaired, "Something very strange is going on. All the electric types in the air patrol have felt it, and not just the Rekku." Most of the Zan'ei's very few flight-capable models were in that joint unit: the Rekku members protected the city's airspace, while the Zan'ei watched over it from above. "There's an ionic imbalance in the air, positive ions?"

"And on class two minimum power, the city's temperature will increase and the humidity..." Oh, the low levels and the underground levels would barely be affected, but they'd have poor light and air circulation. People would move up to take advantage of the natural light as long as it lasted. Heat, positive ions, the stress of the war, all the annoyances minimum power would cause and the fanatics mobilizing? "Lieutenant Brise, I want you back down there keeping an eye on the Missionaries for as long as you can stay on your feet. Hyleg, send potential riot warnings to all city patrol groups. Hanumachine, get up there and request that Colonel Phoenix and Lieutenant Éclair join me as soon as they can." They had their own troops to give orders to: the Rekku emergency medical assistance teams would already be ready to go, but the hospitals were taking in mostly injured reploids. Someone'd need to warn the human wards to get ready. "I'll notify Colbor at the joint command center, but they need to focus on the war. Neo Arcadia is _our _responsibility. Now get moving."

Harpuia wouldn't do something like that without a good reason, not when ionic imbalances could unbalance human brains or poorly-shielded reploids. If he was counting on the Zan'ei to do their duty, he wouldn't be the one to let his unknowing uncle down.

* * *

"Sir?"

"Yes?" Kuwagust asked, turning around.

"Are you really going in there?"

"Yes, Private." Ah, bird-models. Their proximity-sensing programming meant they were prone to what General Harpuia called claustrophobia until they got enough practice maneuvering in tight spaces and knowledge of what _real _terror was to outgrow it. Colonel Kuwagust had plenty of sympathy for them: as a beetle model, which traded gilde capability for increased armor, heights had bothered him when he was new. He had more than enough weight on his frame to fall _hard_. "Don't worry, no one's asking you to go into an underground complex. You and the other under-fives," Herculious would have said newbuilts, if not the dismissive term noobs, "who haven't had close-quarters combat training aren't expected or allowed to volunteer."

"…Sir." The private seemed embarrassed.

Kuwagust suppressed a sigh. "Do you know why our emotional programming includes fear, Private Aztec?"

"Sir?"

Nervous enough to lose most of his vocabulary: Kuwagust remembered when Harpuia had done that to him, and now he was doing it to privates. "Because fear keeps us alive, just like proximity sensors. You're afraid to go into that complex because your systems know that if you do, you'll probably die. And they're most likely right. Master X doesn't want his subjects to waste their lives and General Harpuia won't throw away his soldiers. There's no shame in fear : it forces us to fight hard, for our lives and our city. Courage is not the absence of fear: refusing to pay attention to risk assessment is foolishness. Courage is doing our duty despite fear. And your duty right now is to fly air patrol."

"Yes sir, Colonel Kuwagust." The birdboy saluted and fled.

"That went well," General Genblem rumbled.

The blue beetle didn't jump: after all these years, he knew that was why Genblem did it. He'd expect it of the Zan'ei but Genblem was Jin'en. And massive. Still, that was the extent of the general's sense of humor out in the field. They were both old enough to skip the usual, 'are you flyboys ready to do some real work,' 'are you sure you groundpounders are up to the challenge,' posturing. The real point of it was to get the soldiers ready to go, determined to prove the superiority of the Rekku/Jin'en/whatever to each other, but most importantly to the bodies of their foes.

"Don't bring anyone without heavy armor," Genblem said, getting to the point. "Not when we're dealing with someone this likely to bring the place down on us and fly out the back. Birds." Arrogant, this one was, to taunt them in person. Especially when the Zan'ei had sent back a picture and apparently this clown's name was in the database. He'd fought for Weil during the second elf war, one that devil recruited instead of one he built. Well, they'd get him this time.

Kuwagust ignored that last part. "So you'll be leaving Lieutenant Asura in charge of the surface forces?" The beam saber user relied on flexibility and all those joints were vulnerable points.

Genblem nodded, reptilian face moving slowly and slightly. "Now that you flew in some more mechanics for us," most doctors that worked on reploids were human, and they didn't have a human-safe teleport module, "We can send down Anubis. If we keep her in the middle of the group, she should be able to use those repair nanites to heal us up until we're dug out or we can dig ourselves out." He sighed heavily. "I'm not happy about some of the privates I'll be taking in. Will any of yours start running if some of mine do?"

"We've got new recruits too. They'll quit." Kuwagust had nothing but disgust for people who joined up just to get more energy, or to get the chance to hurt or even kill mechanaloids, or even people. "Something like this might put the fear of Omega into them." Better to run on a mop-up mission than in a battle that might turn into a rout. "Who should I keep an eye on?"

"The black cat and the minotaur." Genblem snorted. "Although you'd think one of those would be right at home in an underground maze."

"Why's that?" Something about the model type?

"Never mind."

* * *

Kyakya! Those fools, thinking he'd hide in a burrow like some common snake. It wasn't that far to the ruined city he'd spent the last century in, waiting for Zero to return so he could have his revenge for that defeat.

When the Maverick Wars were over, they thought they didn't need electronic warfare specialists anymore, especially with cyber elves. Well, he'd made a good living off their stupidity, but a hacker like him being let go from the Maverick Hunters as unnecessary burned. So when Lord Weil made his broadcast, calling on those who missed the old days, who wanted the wars back, the king of serpents had responded.

He might have blown his cover by using the virus Lord Weil gave him to send out all those Basilic units, but they'd thought it was just a natural mutation! Kackya! Well, there was no need for Lord Weil to ever find out about that. It just proved that the virus was effective, and once he had it spread throughout all the city's old systems, coercing the local mechanaloids to repair them, he'd have a base he could use to take control of this part of the world, Cocapetri thought, beating his wings for the altitude to get over the remnants of a stone wall in amidst the mechanical jungle. Having the mechanaloids dig his false base in under it was brilliant: they couldn't use that oaf Fefnir's usual tactics without damaging their precious-

"Gack!" he cried, startled and disgusted when an energy chain made to resemble the _tongue _of a frog-based model tried to wrap around him.

Of course, the operative word was tried: the scanning eyes on his wings had alerted to the threat in time for him to take to the air again. He hadn't lasted this long by being so easy to-

"Oh no you don't!" an outraged and distorted voice declared as spinning metal ripped into him again and again, the reploid spinning on her axis as she chased him through the sky, keeping him too off-balance to stop time as she swatted him back towards the ground. The individual hits were negligible, but his scanners and sensor jammers and system disruptors were delicate instruments. Not to mention his wings.

Stunned by the assault, it was easy for the energy chain to snag him this time, drawing him into reach of the frog reploid's primitive alloy blades.

Alloy, and far from molecular-edged, but they did the job.

"Dig around in _my _forest, will you, Omega-spawn!" the plant-model muttered vindictively as she landed, opening up the 'petals' that formed her helmet to let her hair fall free and tipping up the facemask. She still looked far from humanoid, but Herkot doubted she had any idea how outlandish she looked compared to the baseline models of Neo Arcadia, or humans. She'd been built when this forest was being established, with legs that formed into a drill to bury the bases of new tree-units with and enough of a weapon to fight off marauding mechanaloids.

For Herkot, made in the crowded city of Neo Arcadia, the mechanical forests he had been assigned to patrol since being upgraded into this body seemed deserted, because aside from the occasional travelers they generally were. This was the first time he'd met one of the forest guardians, and he could tell that she'd rarely spoken to _anyone _except inspectors.

He'd thought that she'd be bothered by his orders to kill Cocapetri on sight, but seeing her reaction, he realized that she was used to killing things. Mechanaloids or not, dispatching hostile intruders was half the reason she was here.

When he got back, he was going to submit a request to General Phantom to visit all the forest guardians, perform psychological evaluations and either set up some rotation schedule so they spent a few months out of the year in Neo Arcadia or send them assistants on the pretext of training them for the upkeep of the forests whose original guardians had died one way or another if they couldn't handle that many people yet.

Because he just couldn't imagine living like this. It was a wonder they hadn't all gone insane years ago from pure loneliness. They'd been created to kill intruders: who knew what they'd consider an intruder after they went maverick? Would they begin to hate their duty to the forests that imprisoned them and try to destroy something so important to the world's recovery?

This mandragora was ten times his age and acted like, like the one of the smallest humans he'd ever encountered playing pretend that she was a noble lady out of fairy stories! When she spoke at all. Maybe she was taking refuge in that air of pride because breaking the silence made her nervous.

It was just… not right that people serving the city, serving Master X loyally were just forgotten out here. No matter how busy everyone was, for people to get lost in the shuffle? Oh, they remembered the guardians existed, but they did their jobs and didn't make trouble, and their reward for this was to be ignored?

Something had to be done about it, before something happened to this innocent killer and the rest of her kind.

* * *

_Another error in the artbook is that the mandragora, more commonly known as the mandrake, is not a fictional plant (the word probably meant 'legendary'). Take a look at the Wikipedia article on mandrake: the roots were considered one means of producing "androids" in witchcraft/alchemy, another possible method being machinery. _

_While I think building one's secure database into a reploid was part of the ideas that led to Signas' construction, I don't think it was a very sensible thing for Neo Arcadia to do, especially when they were retiring reploids. Of course, since part of the goal of Neo Arcadia under Copy-X was to restrict access to information, loss of information might have been a benefit instead of a penalty. Forget having a security system in a less-well guarded area! Computer security is only as strong as the weakest link._

_Another boss I left out is one that liked to torture people, using information gathering as an excuse. In this verse, someone like that would have been dealt with already, one way or another._

_Fenri's still sealed: Weil was stopped before he got his hands on the Judges, let alone went looking for more minions. _

_Anubis Necromancess is 'the IIIrd' because he died and was revived somewhat messed-up by his nanites before the game. That hasn't happened to this one. The zombie version identifying as male and being a little the non-fun kind of nuts doesn't necessarily imply anything about the original version. Also, -ess. The use of it implies that someone who knew what feminine endings were was involved in the naming process, and it would be seriously rude for someone identifying as male to give an indication that they're female & deliberately confuse people._


	46. Like Heaven Coming Down

Copy-X knew the feel of dirt and rock under his boots, dust in his breath after traveling the wastes.

He knew his city when it was only a couple of kilometers away, even though he'd spent far more time inside those shining towers than outside the city's borders. Yet he didn't know it for a moment, and then knew that something wasn't right.

The towers still stood, the center of the city, the citadel. The keep that kept his people safe. But there was nothing between the outer walls and the blasted plain. The transition was as sharp as if a knife had cut it. On one side, civilization. On the other, desolation. Where were the buildings that softened that border? Built of everything from scavenged alloy sheets to sun-dried bricks, they held the lives and ambitions that flowed out from the city.

Because out here, under the grey sky, there was space. Space for warehouses full of scrap metal, the findings the scavenger caravans hadn't sold yet. Space for private solar panels powering the small private factories that made everything the city didn't provide its people with, everything that wasn't a necessity.

Where were the humans in light armor with breathmasks, the reploids with masks over their faces to protect their relatively fragile skin, so it was almost impossible to distinguish the two? Where was the Outer Market, where these goods were sold to the traders, to researchers hoping to find some treasure hidden in what the scavengers had brought back, to those of the inner city willing to dare the Outside? Lovers of bright ribbons and jewelry made of twisted wire & ancient chips. Young humans and reploids on their first outing, adventurous and yet sticking close to walls and ducking from stall to stall until they were sure the huge sky wouldn't swallow them up.

It was a place of surplus, of adventure that wasn't deadly, of things that weren't needful and things that only exited because people wanted.

It was gone. Only the shining white towers and the dead dust remained.

What really hurt, he thought, was that it wasn't Weil that had done this. Fefnir had, and Copy-X hadn't realized what it meant at the time. Yes, it was to protect the people, to protect the city. The open spaces of the outer city, the clutter and chaos that came with freedom: they wouldn't have been able to stop Weil from sending infiltrators into it. Wouldn't have been able to stop him from killing the most fearless and dedicated of their people, continuing their work even though war raged outside walls they'd built with their own hands.

They would have warned them to evacuate when they first knew Weil was coming, would have given them time to carry all they could into the city, but what of the people who didn't have enough storage space in the city? Or had to spent all the ration they'd bargained for (those who didn't work for the city weren't paid by it) just renting a room?

With all that had to be done after the war, how many businesses would be unable to reopen? How many people would have lost everything they'd worked for? Have no alternative but to go back to being part of a building crew, some other menial job they thought they'd managed to leave behind? If they weren't conscripted to work at Area Zero!

To preserve the lives and futures of these people, Fefnir had… _he _had, destroyed their present, smashed their dreams. And he hadn't thought anything of it, just agreed that it was necessary without even realizing the cost.

So this was war. This was the cost of fighting, even to protect. Hadn't the Guardians all said it, that the world had been joyful, had been doing so many things that hadn't been possible while the Maverick Wars raged? Had been building until the war came and swept all that new growth away?

Fists clenched, he almost didn't notice his wings sliding out, his armor configuring into full Seraph Mode. They'd beaten Weil! It should be over! His city should be able to heal, he should be working to help them get their dreams back! But instead of peace, instead of prosperity, there on ground that should have been formed into lots and paths, should have been cluttered with makeshift structures and jury-rigged devices, was a battle.

It was one thing to fight in ruins, on the wastes and in a hidden ancient space station. That was, well, that was adventuring. Those were places where fighting was expected, almost supposed to happen. This was, this was _his city, _not a ruin (he wouldn't let it stay this way). This was the place Ciel had built him for, this earth belonged to the people he was supposed to protect.

This was supposed to be their place, not a battlefield. This was supposed to be their peace, their victory, not someone's… How dare he just waltz in here and…

A human's body would have been flooded with adrenaline, readying itself for action, the fight or flight reflex firmly settled on fight. Copy-X's body was flooded with repair nanites, readying themselves to boost his systems as needed, to cool the barrel of his buster & making sure that he was in optimal condition.

Black dust fell from his wings: he flared them once, reflexively shaking off the remnants of the black paint, large chips of it falling like a young hawk's feathers, making way for adult plumage.

This had to stop. The fighting was _going _to stop. It had been exciting and maybe even fun, it had been nice to see Ciel again, but _enough was enough_. He wanted to go home, he wanted his city back just the way it was, and until the war was over he couldn't have that. Until the war was over everything everyone did would have to take the war into account: how could someone bother everyone else like that! How selfish did you have to be, to try to make the world revolve around you! Smashing other people's things, that they'd worked so hard to make! Making _him _be responsible for smashing those precious things, making him and the Guardians hurt their own city!

Their original coding restored, red eyes narrowed. He'd heard the Guardians' stories, he knew that Omega was a dumb beast and that destroying it wouldn't really accomplish anything but keeping it busy until someone figured out how to contain it again, but he was just _fed up_. Logically, yes, he was aware that yielding to the urge to do violence was a poor way to manage anger, especially when it wasn't Omega he wanted to punch in the face, slam to the ground and give a piece of his mind! But Omega was the last piece left of this war, and both of them were going to get out of his city!

* * *

Leviathan always needed a moment after a teleport to reorient herself. Even when she hadn't been signed on to her network, her systems always registered the signal, letting her sense the health of the oceans & problems with the city's water supply.

While they were scrambling to plan Neo Arcadia's construction, X had given orders for a water purification plant, for a sensor network to let them know if pipes burst. Leviathan snorted and said those weren't necessary. She'd expected him to be relieved: fewer things to build, more people and resources they could use on other projects. But instead of nodding and crossing those off the list he was making, he'd looked at her and sort of smiled. She said 'sort of' because it wasn't a real smile, it was a polite place-holder while a tired mind tried to think of something to say, switching from practical mode to 'sparing my little girl's feelings' mode.

"We don't need those," she'd repeated herself. "I'll take care of it."

That smile had only grown more strained, until X managed to say, "Well, for something this important, it's vital to have a backup system. Now," he hurried onto the next category.

She'd opened her mouth to say that it was okay, seriously. She had her nanites: managing water purification would be a snap, and as for monitoring the pipes? They didn't need to build anything else for that, not _now_, when there were so many things they actually needed. Yes, she was already busy, but he could count on her for this…

No.

Her father didn't count on her. He never had, had he?

He couldn't.

Leviathan lost so many people during the war. Everyone had. It was X that held her, tried to teach her how to deal with it even though it would never stop hurting. To try to accept that she would lose people, and it wasn't her fault: it was just the way things were, in wars.

The tighter he'd hugged her, the more he tried to comfort her, the more tired his eyes, the more she knew that he had already mourned her. Already accepted her death. Was valuing every second he could spend with her, with all four of them, before he inevitably lost them.

So of course he wouldn't depend on her, or make Neo Arcadia depend on her abilities. Wouldn't incorporate abilities only possessed by a dead reploid walking into plans for the future, much less let the last hope of two species' survival depend on someone who would surely vanish like a dream died with the morning's light.

He'd thought that she would die and he would have to go on protecting the city alone, and here she was, back from defeating Weil in round two while he was who knew where. How about that?

Those memories came to her in the split-second before she noticed the battle, because she'd sensed the water that pooled on the battlefield, water that must have come from Neo Arcadia's pipes. She might have laughed out loud, laughed with triumph, because she was alive and Weil was dead. She'd survived yet another war, they all had, and maybe, when X came home and found all of them here along with Zero the survivor, he'd let himself begin to believe they would live.

Because hope hurt. Everything precious did, everything that made you feel _alive _did. Leviathan wasn't going to blame him for pulling back from it to protect himself, to keep going. She'd seen too many humans become shell-shocked, too many reploids wipe the traumatic memories and end up newbuilts or useless husks when it became too much. X kept going, kept fighting, and that made him strong no matter what he had to do to hold off that madness. No matter how insulted she felt when she realized that being certain he would lose her meant he was certain that she would lose.

Shaking off those memories, she used her spear to lever herself to her feet (she went to one knee after teleporting because that put her in position to lunge up if the LZ wasn't as secure as anticipated, not to mention a way to dodge sniper headshots) and wonder why on earth Phantom was monitoring the battlefield from above using his Armed Phenomenon form. It made sense that Schilt and Cubit were there, they were the judges with misdirection abilities & could help herd and distract Omega, but why was Flizard here and what happened to Fefnir's kaiju form? For that matter, why was there a log of ice on the field? None of them used ice abilities.

Well, maybe the judges were taking it in shifts. Get Omega to improve his defenses against ice at the cost of his defenses against heat, then deploy the Judges that used fire to hammer him along with Fefnir. Send out the electricity-users next, although Biblio must be incredibly busy right about now.

Either way, her options were to escort the kid and Ciel to the city, which would make her the one there and in charge, meaning she couldn't fight Omega, or trust the kid to take care of himself and his maker for a few kilometers while she ran over to order Fefnir back to the city. He probably needed a breather & resupply by now, and taking this in shifts was such a good idea she was sure it had to be Phantom's, not Fefnir's.

Well, no, that was being unfair to her brother.

Still, once she was in the city there were so many people who urgently needed orders and authorizations that she'd be too bogged down to come back out and fight. If neither she nor Fefnir was there to run interference and advise the kid over the coms, he'd have to make a hundred decisions at once on his own without showing any doubt or needing time to think, because that was what was expected of Master X in situations like this. That he would know what needed to be done to protect the city. To protect the world… _What the waste did the kid think he was doing! _

Going into his best battle mode like that? In front of the city? Neo Arcadia's military sensors couldn't see through the jamming curtain Cubit and Schilt had set up, but all the Guardians, and Copy-X as well, had the decryption software necessary to see through it. Leviathan wasn't sure if Copy-X even knew it was there: she wasn't sure he'd seen their abilities demonstrated before.

However, the… four of them (where had the reporter gone? And why was Ciel on her knees looking at her hands and giggling-Oh _blood-drenched wasteland_) _were _in full view of the city, and now Leviathan needed to _run _and see if any of the nurse elves could do something about this level of teleport sickness! What kind of hacker elf didn't know how to do a human-safe teleport!

Ignoring the internal emotional state that had gone from puzzlement to irritation to _panic_, Leviathan stepped forward to grab Copy-X by a leg and haul him back down to eye level. At least now people would think he'd gone into flight mode to get Dr. Ciel to help instead of to join the fight and destroy Omega-

She paused, hand already around Copy-X's calf.

Behind her, Ciel's hair frizzled in the static, strands floating in all directions and practically fighting free of her ponytail. Zero's looked like a massive puffball more than anything else, or perhaps a sea anemone. Part of Leviathan made a note of the idea of creating a sea anemone mechanaloid to ambush mechanaloids that invaded coastal waters. Part of her thought he looked absolutely ridiculous and hoped she'd remember to download this image and share it later.

Copy-X's hair also tried to stand on end, which was a strange sensation when it was confined by a helmet and didn't have anywhere to go but back down, pricking at his scalp.

They weren't the only ones that felt it: Fefnir ran towards her, along with Flizard and Cubit. Phantom swooped down, a wing-panel pushing the smaller Schilt under him. Schilt might have protested, because he was in slightly less danger than the others, but there wasn't time.

"Ha!" Leviathan shouted, gathering her will, channeling that force into her spear as she raised it above her head and plunged it down, stabbing deep into the rubble beneath their feet.

And the sky fell.

* * *

_Copy-X is still Copy-X. In canon, it took him a handful of years to reach the level of, 'I am trying to build a world where people are safe here: why do you have to be so difficult and murderous? If you don't knock it off, I will _kill you all._ Alright, that's it!' which took X close to two centuries of near-constant warfare._ _And then Copy-X was cold fury enough about it to organize a plan where reploids were gradually genocided after preferably being worked to death while most of the humans knew nothing using the energy crisis as an excuse, although Ciel found out. The guardians have gone out of their way to isolate Copy-X from frustration & guilt that he can't do enough, and since his original purpose was to prevent people from having to be out for themselves, he's more aware of the reasons people commit crimes and so on and will assume there's an explanation instead of a child's 'it's all about me' (they think they're the center of the world because they've dealt with little of it but what impinges on them directly) resulting in him think they're deliberatly making things difficult for him. _

_Going into Seraph Mode is kind of like a cobra spreading its hood, isn't it? Threat display. Only instead of 'back off or I will bite you' it's 'or I will smite you.' Although cobras look dangerous enough in their default state while Copy-X is based on a design meant to look (mostly) harmless. Also, in-universe that armor was designed by Ciel to be something she considered appropriate for Master X: hero worship indeed. It's interesting to think about what people would record about this war, in holy books and history books written by people no less grateful to X, Zero and the Guardians. Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory, yes, because the whole messiah thing is a very successful meme. _


	47. Angels Shall Fall

Silence.

Absolute silence.

The only vibrations Copy-X could detect were those of his own systems.

He blinked his eyes, amazed that they weren't burnt-out. He'd had to authorize replacement optics for a repair team once, except the human members. Nothing could be done there but hope their self-repair systems restored their vision on their own.

Copy-X's eyes were fine, he verified as he blinked them. Even if there had been damage, it had already been pushed from the minor damage report files by what the water was doing to his exterior, mostly removing protective coatings.

Water.

He was floating in the middle of some kind of sphere. Two of the Judges, Fefnir and Lieutenant Elpis were slowly sinking to the bottom, while he, Phantom's Armed Phenomenon form, Lark and Schilt were drifting upwards much faster. Zero's empty body had sunk like a rock, golden hair now spread over crystal, tinting the tan of the wasteland rich amber.

Guardian Leviathan and Ciel weren't moving up or down, although Ciel was waving an arm while holding on to Leviathan, trying to get herself somewhat vertical. There was something that nagged at him about that. Yes, Leviathan was the Guardian of the Dark Ocean; she commanded the waters so she wouldn't just be pushed around by density, but Ciel… Ciel was human. Humans couldn't extract the oxygen from water they needed to perform the chemical reaction which gave them energy-Humans couldn't breathe underwater.

Ciel was going to drown, he thought, but Leviathan didn't answer his com signal, just the automatic reaction: _authorized contact y/n y. status: busy – leave message y/n? _

He still couldn't hear anything at all. It was eerie. Even in X and the Guardian's tower, which had the best soundproofing in the city not for the sake of comfort but a necessity for the sake of security, there were still the vibrations conducted up through the floor. Neo Arcadia was a busy city, especially now. The din of factories that didn't stop for anything but scheduled maintenance. Construction. The constant patter of human footsteps & clatter of reploid. And people talking, just people talking. There wasn't a human over forty in the city that hadn't lost at least some of their hearing: the roar of an excited crowd could go well over the amount of decibels that damaged their delicate audio systems.

Even in the wastes there had been the wind, but it had been so _quiet _there. The clanging of Ragnarok and the way voices echoed there had made it enough like home that he just hadn't been as frightened there as he probably should have, he realized in retrospect as he moved his arms and kicked his legs.

He barely got any closer to Leviathan at all, even though he'd been sure that movement pattern was the stored optimal one for swimming underwater. Oh, the wings were giving him too much drag: with them sticking out from his body like this he'd have to displace an incredible amount of water to move.

He'd just started to pull them behind his body to streamline himself when the ice encasing this ball of water shattered. The rushing water caught his wings, and he was tumbled over so many times even his gyroscopes couldn't tell him which way was up until his back hit the wet sand. He was glad he was face-up because he'd been so startled his mouth opened to cry out even though the water would have dampened the vibrations. He'd gotten sand in this teeth too many times while traveling in the wastes, and he'd been sick of it the first.

Of course, that meant the edge of one of Phantom's wing panels hit the underside of his jaw. The pinwheel-like form had gone flying like a pinwheel and ended up perpendicular to the ground: if Copy-X's voice box hadn't already been crushed by half that weight hitting his throat, his neck would have been snapped as it toppled over sideways and wrenched his jaw up.

As he pushed himself out from under it, using his wings to push at the dirt while his hands pushed off from the wing panel, he knew that he couldn't tell Phantom that had happened, ever. He wasn't X, but Phantom had still made himself responsible for his safety.

Leviathan hit the ground rolling, arms wrapped around Ciel. Leviathan had made sure she didn't inhale any water, but her lungs finally getting the air they'd been desperately working for made her cough out a little saliva: her body _thought _she'd been drowning, and was using that protocol. Always happened.

As she got to her feet and set the girl on hers, the protective membrane that functioned as a specialized lens for letting her see through the refractions of water and ice slid back. She realized she should have kept it up after the sand and rocks that had been kicked up finally started falling, and pulled the human in under her arm so one of them didn't hit her head.

The ice hadn't been exactly a sphere when she formed it or when she broke the whole thing before the heat differential made it crack. Yes, most of the top had exploded into steam, taking the heat with it, but microwaves… She'd brought as much water up out of Neo Arcadia's pipeline as she could, and the water pressure was still sending a geyser shooting a dozen feet up into the air, turning half the edge of the into a waterfall, the water tumbling down into the rest of the crater, the part that hadn't been protected by her ice.

The dangerous part wasn't the heat, or that wasn't the only dangerous part.

Part of her made a note that they were going to have to make a lot more glass: if less than half the windows in Neo Arcadia just shattered it would be a miracle. They used glass whenever possible instead of the higher-tech alternatives because glass was just melted sand, which was the cheapest stuff on earth. Delivered to your door, too, and you'd have piles of it just lying around if you didn't watch it.

Contrary to popular belief, water didn't conduct electricity. The reason an appliance falling into it would kill a human wasn't because of the water, but because water was damn near a universal solvent. The water might not conduct electricity, but all the salts and metal ions it had picked up sure would. Except when they couldn't move freely like, for instance, when they were locked in ice.

A sphere of ice wouldn't have saved them. The only way to survive this was two spheres of ice and two of water. The outer shell of ice to absorb as much of the kinetic force as possible and keep the outer shell of conductor-laden water intact, so it could channel that power around the inner ice shield with as little heat-producing resistance as possible. And, at the heart of it, a core of distilled water, with nothing for the lightning to use to jump to them, drained of dissolved particles to fortify the outer shell of water.

They'd worked it out during the Elf War. They couldn't have used ultimate attacks that would kill their own side, after all. That was why the others ran for her: they'd recognized the warning signs. Fefnir, Phantom and Cubit had all seen it before, although in Cubit's case only very briefly.

Even the airborne Schilt and Phantom couldn't count on getting out of the blast radius fast enough, not when there were several blasts. If the shockwave had hit them in the air they'd have hit the ground or the city walls hard enough to break every support strut in their bodies.

It was a good thing Neo Arcadia's towers were earthquake-proof.

The power. The heat. The shrapnel as the current pouring upwards from the earth into the heavens levitated stones into the air and created a localized tornado, sand moving fast enough to strip away armor paint and alloy better than industrial diamond knife sharpeners. If Ciel had been out in that, it would have chewed her up and spit out bone fragments no bigger than the rest of the sand. Of course there weren't any rocks among the debris falling to earth, already covering up the glassy bottom of the crater. They'd been pulverized.

Some said the world would end in fire, some said in ice. Fefnir held with those who favored fire, she knew how the sea devoured the land, but Harpuia would bring down the heavens and make the earth itself rise up in answer to destroy evil.

They hadn't managed to measure the power output, but it was easily equivalent to a tactical nuclear device, at least. It was the most powerful attack in Harpuia's arsenal: even she couldn't match it, not on land. Even then, hers dealt in widespread one-hit destruction, the annihilation of coastal bases and foolish fleets, not focused fury combining so many kinds of damage that it would have overwhelmed any ordinary elf's ability to ward off damage. They'd never managed to use it against Omega: Harpuia was needed in the field.

The storm heralded Harpuia's arrival. He rode the storm, _was _the storm: a valkyrie who did not choose from the dead but chose who would die so others could live. They'd called him the Wrath of God, if not God of Wrath. The god of justice, the angel who came bringing two swords.

To dive down even from near-orbit, to dive into a storm of wind, stone and lightning? Only Harpuia could have survived the fall. The atmospheric friction alone!

It was as impressive as hell. It was risky as hell. Only precise control of his support system would let him survive it, let alone pull it off. And she had no idea why the fuck he had done it. Yes, diving was the fastest way to get back down here, but he could have used his boosters and decelerated before he hit the ground. Killing Omega wasn't worth it, not when there were easier ways. Not when he'd just come back to life. As much as she hated it, it would be far better to sacrifice an elf than risk losing Harpuia, than risk any of them. They shouldn't be out here, putting themselves in danger like this, but if they weren't people who put themselves in danger to protect others, if they weren't X's children, they wouldn't deserve the power they wielded, the trust that made them so important to Neo Arcadia's future.

But there were limits, and Harpuia knew that. He couldn't protect humans if he was dead, and the Third Law would keep him from risking himself too, if he'd installed that one.

If it was anyone but Harpuia, she would have assumed he'd done it to show off, or because he was convinced he was immortal like most flight-capables. But what Harpuia had done to himself… he was acting like an ice queen far more than he ever had when he was a female model, _way _more than she ever would. He had an ego, but he didn't show off for fun the way she did. His pride, like Phantom's, manifested in not needing to show off, in doing everything with the utmost skill they expected of themselves. At least Phantom paid attention to the onlookers and their opinions when he did something spectacular: the way Harpuia ignored the audience (or gave them a disapproving look that was as good as telling them to stop gawking and get back to work) made it even clearer that he wasn't doing it for them.

So she stared at where she'd last seen Omega, waiting for the sand to finish falling, waiting to see more than a few yards in front of her face. Waiting for someone to tell her what the hell she'd just teleported into, along with the kid and Neo Arcadia's greatest mind, semi-scrambled or not.

They'd have time before Omega managed to pull himself together without the station helping him. She didn't believe in the word 'overkill' since there was only kill and not enough kill, but the only way to survive this was a specialized Faraday cage and more armor than X ever wore.

A shadow rose behind her: out of the corner of her optics she watched it and finally made out that it was Phantom's armed phenomenon form. It took a moment to recognize it because unlike the rest of those forms, she'd never seen that one covered in mud. It was wet and the falling dust stuck to it: where the outside of the dirt was still wet was darker than areas that had been well-coated. The streaks of all shades of brown made the ninja's larger form better camouflaged now than it had ever been before. He could lie flat on the wastes and fade into the shadows and dust.

A smaller form followed him up: they were further away and Leviathan couldn't make out any details, but from the size and the shape of the wing configuration, that was Schilt, not the kid.

The angry hiss of a beam sword below and behind her would have put her on her guard if she wasn't already, but she realized after a moment that it was the hum of a regulation beam sword, and the angry crackling noises that made her think it might be a strange and therefore probably enemy weapon were caused by the dust falling on the blade and interfering with the energy. The dust here certainly had a lot of iron mixed in: if they ever ran out of metal already dug up and processed to scavenge, should they extract it from here? No, she was pretty sure X had mentioned that there once were ancient iron mines around here somewhere. It would be on the maps the Rekku kept updating.

After glancing at her, Lark ran to the edge and looked down. "Oh, are you alright? I really should start carrying a cord," she said apologetically.

"I'm fine," Lieutenant Elpis said shortly, not to be rude but it was clear she was trying to concentrate. Carving handholds was easy enough with a beam sword, although it took a lot of power. It was one of the things people who used them picked up in basic, because the Rekku believed in holding the high ground, if they had to hold ground at all. The trouble was that this wasn't solid stone, this was a pile of rocks and other rubble. It wasn't just a matter of finding hand and footholds, carving one in when she needed to, it was finding secure hand and footholds that wouldn't give way when she let go with one hand and shifted her weight to move or carve a new one. She was holding her beam saber in her mouth while she climbed with the blade turned on, which made this faster but meant she stood a good chance of rendering an arm or a leg non-functional if she lost her balance and fell. "I'll be up there in a second. You okay back there?" she asked the kid.

Personal dislike or not, he was a civilian. Or was he? Either way, he was one of the people she had taken it upon herself to protect. It just drove her up the wall. She hated wishy-washy people with no ambitions, people who just sat around waiting for some sign to give them an identity instead of seizing a future for themselves. It took one to know one, after all. When she'd read about the Elpis Project, how those people had gathered together to bring an end to an era, to change the nature of their world, it was… It had amazed her. That they'd _dared_. Not just taking the risk, when the mavericks would have done anything to destroy them and the hope they'd created, but that they'd believed that they, themselves, had the power to change the world, and if they didn't as individuals then they would make that power. Would find a way to forge a path to the future they wanted.

She'd read it (well, he'd read it, back then) and thought that this, this was the way she wanted to live. Oh, he was a clerk, he'd heard plenty of hero tales and historical accounts of Master X, Zero and the Guardians, but they were special. They had powerful systems, the power to be heroes. These people, though? They'd been just as weak as he was. Wastes, more than half of them were human! Believing that they could gain power, believing that they, that anyone could seize the future: he'd wanted to live like them, and realized that he could.

So she found herself wanting to slap this kid, to yell at him that he needed to decide who he was, to stop wasting his life the way she almost had, just going from assignment to assignment instead of doing anything with meaning, or even anything that she liked! It made her even more frustrated that he was a good kid, really, one who might go far if he just got his act together and _focused_.

But not only would that be conduct unbecoming of an soldier and protector of Neo Arcadia, they were on a mission, an important mission. Yes, they'd defeated Weil, but it wasn't over until the spotter confirmed all threats were neutralized. And she was on this mission. She was! A clerk type, a non-combat model not designed to do anything more strenuous than sorting through filing cabinets! Serving directly under one of the Guardians themselves!

Her hair was a mud-caked mess (even with easy-clean fibers, the hot water necessary to wash it out was going to eat a chunk out of her ration) and her green beret looked more like one died in an ancient forest camo pattern. She was absolutely certain that somehow, some of the sand had gotten under her synthflesh and she was going to be picking it out from between the joints and support struts in her feet with tweezers during her next downtime. The Zan'ei she'd consulted about upgrades were right, though: having the articulated, human-style feet made a big difference. She wouldn't have been able to grip and adjust her weight well enough to climb like this without the improved control, as weird a concept as toes were.

The kid had even taken off his armor boots and was holding them in one hand while he climbed up a safeish distance behind her and waited for her to make the next cut. After what just happened, he didn't want to try flying until this cleared. She didn't either, not to mention the fact that there was crud all over her boosters and probably inside them. Removing them from her back, striping them down and cleaning them so a blockage wouldn't make one of them blow up in battlefield conditions was part of the training, but she hadn't made officer rank by being stupid enough to remove what amounted to half her armor and turn it into dead weight this close to what could only be the legendary Omega.

This was history and she was here for it, even if she hadn't really done anything significant enough for her name to be remembered. It was a start.

Climbing up behind her, Copy-X remembered how Zero had taken that cliff in several dash jumps, but even though this side of the rise was sloped because of the 'shadow' of protection cast by Leviathan's orb it was so unstable that trying to dash jump up it would make it crumble away under him as he landed. To make matters worse, since he couldn't retract his wings while they were covered in something that would mess up his internal mechanisms he was off-balance and would probably end up tumbling down the hill. Since the lieutenant had already been climbing when he got to his feet, it seemed like she knew what she was doing so he was following her up. He kept his impatience hidden: it just wasn't safe to move fast right now, but Ciel was up there, and if she'd fallen or was sick he had to fly her back to the hospital first thing.

He felt almost ashamed of himself. The Guardians could take care of Omega: it wasn't his job to fight. It was his job to reassure the city and right now it would need someone to hold it together, to convince them of the victory and dispel the fear. Instead he'd, he'd just gotten angry and hadn't even _noticed _that Ciel was sick until Leviathan had made him stop. It was probably stupid of him to think that he could beat Omega, anyway. Omega was much older than he was and had the infinite potential system, too, so even though he must not have the Dark Elf he did have a very big head start. Copy-X had been using X's memorized combat moves to fight, too, and this was just evidence the Guardians were right when they'd told him not to do that: X had fought Omega, so it must know how to counter X's moves better than Copy-X knew how to use them effectively.

He'd, he'd been a silly newbuilt. Like a human child throwing a tantrum when someone took their toy instead of getting a crèche nurse. He had a _job _to do. What if Leviathan hadn't stopped him? What if he'd kept drifting forward until he attacked and Omega crushed him? Crushed _Master X _in full view of the city?

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_! He _knew _better than that! It was so selfish of him just to think about how angry he was! Yes, he wanted to stop the war, he was angry at Weil for what had happened to the city and its people, but while he couldn't beat Omega there was something he_ could_ do that was even better revenge, if he had to be petty.

If he hadn't turned off the blushing his face would have been flushed with anger, this time at himself. They were still at war, this was no time for someone who was practically a rookie to charge in stupidly and get in the way while getting himself killed. While his family watched!

Once Elpis reached the top and took Lark's hand, he scrambled up the rest of the way. "Is Ciel alright?"

"I'm fine," she said, although she immediately amended that with, "Just cold."

Leviathan had chilled it as much as she could, to absorb yet more energy. This was an unexpected bonus, but it made sense. She'd seen a lot of humans go into shock during the Elf War. Cancer, she'd lost count of how many times she'd seen a girl around Ciel's age start giggling. The problem was making sure they shot the enemy instead of themselves, but the prognosis was generally better than for a lot of the other ways humans could go crazy. Cold water was one of the ancient ways to force humans to snap out of it, although they'd told the other Meikai to just slap them because wasting cold purified water was criminal.

"Um, what just happened?" Ciel asked. First they were underwater – she'd thought they'd been teleported into the ocean! And now it was raining dirt. She had to hold the front of her shirt over her nose and mouth to keep from breathing it in. Since Leviathan pushed her down and then ignored her, she'd assumed something dangerous was going on and she shouldn't distract her, but apparently she was allowed to talk now.

Lark shrugged. Copy-X looked at Leviathan, then followed her gaze upwards to where shadows that were probably Phantom and Schilt circled overhead. Leviathan was frowning.

The damn tornado had ground the dust so fine that the wind all this had kicked up was keeping it from settling at a decent rate. At least this wasn't a full-fledged sandstorm. In the distance she could now make out a figure that was probably Fefnir, since she'd lost track of him after her orb cracked and Fefnir was the only idiot she knew who would take off and run towards where the enemy would reappear _across a thin layer of cooling glass_. Of course, if she was Fefnir, she would be able to see through this. The ground-pounder had gotten a different set of eyeguards.

Another thing: what was with the com silence? Someone should have told her what the hell was going on by now. It wasn't like Omega was smart enough to take advantage of or track com traffic, if he heard it at all.

Lark, Ciel and Elpis were still pulling themselves together after what happened, but for the experienced Leviathan and Copy-X with his battle mode the seconds were dragging on far too slowly.

_Leviathan_Ansul_ViuyZaarn logged in._

_Connecting to Soliere. _

_Uploading program Exec_Zarle – Leviathan extracting._

They'd had such grand dreams in those days of peace. Control the weather. Keep the thin soil from being blown away, scorched to bare rock. Cloud cover to protect plants from the harsh sun.

And rain.

Rain to make seeds long-buried in the desert bloom. Rain to wash pollutants from the sky, drain them down into the sea where they could be purified.

The first drops fell instantly: the atmospheric disturbances here had already set a storm brewing. Ciel looked up, the first to feel a raindrop on her head. Leviathan watched as the dust was cleared away, lowering her lenses again to try to make it out: green and gold, red and was that a flash of pink?

Nothing moved except her faux pupils as she adjusted her vision and visual processing.

Then she had to widen her eyes, even though doing that and pulling her head back made her lose focus. She hoped that when she got it back she wouldn't see the same thing, but not very hard. She knew better.

After she blinked and reset, she saw the two of them hadn't moved a muscle, still locked in that, that insane tableau. She could have said something about how that just wasn't _possible_, it violated the hell out of Newton's laws, not to mention the conservation of matter and energy, but even though she'd now spent decades straining to do the possible, she'd fought in a war where Weil's insane whims and her father's determination left reality gibbering in the dark.

Electricity could be absorbed or rerouted. Plasma could be partially deflected and lasers entirely reflected.

The birds of prey Harpuia echoed had sharp talons, but when they attacked they kept their talons curled up into blunt fists. It wasn't a slash that killed most of their prey. It was the _impact_. Farseeing eyes found a target and dived, using their height to create momentum that was transformed into force, bringing death from above. When Harpuia did a search-and-destroy patrol, that was his favored method of destroying any large mechanaloids they didn't need somewhat intact. Stoop, rocket back up to patrol height, find another one, stoop… Fefnir called it pretending to be a basketball.

This time, Harpuia launched himself from low orbit, falling like a meteor towards his foe. When he reached them, all of that speed which would have melted a lesser reploid's armor would be focused in on one of the more heavily armored portions of his body: the soles of his feet. As the victim fell, making a crater within a crater, Harpuia would use his thrusters and dash boots to lose the rest of his momentum, trying to keep himself from following them into the unforgiving ground.

But that wasn't what she saw.

Harpuia was still in the air, wings partially extended but not flying or hovering.

When he hit Omega Harpuia was the one knocked aside, rebounding from the immovable object with only a fraction of the force he'd hit it with. Quickly, he whirled, slashing down with his beam sabers. This wouldn't be the first time an enemy with strong armor had survived the initial blow (although normally he wasn't coming down from so high…), but when an enemy's body didn't move, that meant all that energy had gone into their internal systems. No matter _how _good their shock absorbers were, their internal components would get scrambled. Most of the time, this meant they'd traded a crushed chest or broken legs for a lobotomy, and there was nothing they could do to defend themselves while Harpuia made sure there was nothing left to repair.

Except Omega had blocked his slashes. Both of them.

Harpuia's twin blades were caught in the hands that had been Zero's, between thumb and forefinger of pristine white gloves.

That made Harpuia freeze, balance systems keeping him in the air, nothing supporting him but the hilts of those sabers as he stared into red eyes that were now Wily's.

His sabers had been caught. His sabers had been caught.

Even with the special hand-guards many Japanese warriors wore, even using both hands, that was an incredibly risky technique. Miss, and the blade would cut the skin off their hands and go on to hit its target. In real sword fights, even before the invention of the beam saber, the first successful strike ended the battle. Killed.

Yet instead of being a contemptible, idiot move it was still considered impressive because what it said when someone pulled it off. It said _I am better than you_. Only a great swordsman or an utter fool would risk this move, and only a great swordsman dealing with someone who was not in their league could succeed instead of being instantly killed for their hubris.

That was why Harpuia was frozen there, as his mind raced. He could not win: this was proof. But he could not lose, not when Wily had sworn to kill everyone in Neo Arcadia, including the humans. To keep attacking was certain suicide, a third law violation. Yet not trying to stop him despite the odds was a first violation. He _had _to think of a way to beat him, he had to fight him, yet everything he could think of, ever plan he could scrape up out of decades of fighting and study of strategy was almost instantly vetoed. Because given these capabilities, all of them would fail.

And Wily knew it, damn him. That had to be why he hadn't throw Harpuia away and impaled him on his own beam saber. Or perhaps he was waiting for the dust to clear. For an audience. For the other children of Dr. Light's last creation to realize just how hopeless this was, how little hope they had without X and Zero.

He couldn't even try to bluff, to feign contempt or defiance, not in the face of those eyes, that smirk. It would be like trying to bluff X, damn them both. His father had always read him like a book, well enough Harpuia might have suspected X of building in a way to read his mind if he hadn't known better.

He heard Fefnir's boots running towards them, in some hopeless attempt to save Harpuia that would surely get him killed, too. He heard the crackle as Leviathan summoned an ice dragon, surely riding it as it surged forward, trying to reach him in time. They were just putting themselves within Zero's reach, couldn't they see that!

"They're both just handing themselves over to me, but you, you brought a silver platter," Wily said, and the world went dark.

* * *

_The weather control mechanic in Zero series is an interesting concept, isn't it? Something like that as a Mundane Utility._

_Leviathan's eye protection is based on what alligators have._

_I should be consistent and always use metric measurements, but I did metric measurements in science classes, so to me they connotate scientific precision. It seems wrong to say 'a few meters' and stuff like that. This was an issue in another fic, too._

_Also, if you're going, how do nanites do that much blank in that little time, it's magitech. Harpuia and Leviathan can use their robot master abilities to directly control robot-type units and drones, and 'use the system to give orders to nanites,' but the two of them are not experts, so they're not actually aware of how much of what they're doing is based on ELF tech. As Weil pointed out in chapter 3, there's a lot of stuff that X just chose not to mention to them._


	48. For Destruction, Ice

Fefnir surged forward with a roar, covering several meters in one dash-jump and ramming that thing helmet-first. He might be the heaviest of the four of them, but because of that and in order to handle the recoil of his cannons X had given him the strongest legs. Dragons might be mythical and alligators extinct, but although normally a human could easily outrun a reptile, once they were in range to strike they were blindingly fast.

He felt a flash of surprise that it actually worked, that he'd hit that thing when Phantom and Harpuia had failed, but he didn't let it keep him from jumping away again in time to avoid most of the surge of what had to be virus. Ah, he though, smiling in a way that showed all his currently-sharpened teeth. The only maneuver more damaging than an ambush was an ambushed ambush. The bastard was using Harpuia as bait, knowing that they'd rush forward to save their brother. They hadn't kept each other alive through the Elf Wars just to watch them die now!

If Fefnir had tried to press the-seeming advantage, Zero's arms would have caught him. Fefnir was old and he had every anti-virus tweak X could give him, but if the virus couldn't take him over it would still attack, disorient him and try to disable him, like X.

Well, that was the difference between an old soldier and an old bastard. Fefnir went in there to get Harpuia out, and mission damn well accomplished. Phantom had swooped in when Harpuia went flying, caught him and spun around to toss him to Leviathan. She'd read their movements and guessed the strategy in time to get herself turned around & her dragon was already headed back to safety when Harpuia landed in her arms. Leviathan was blindingly fast in the water, but she was actually the slowest of them on land because the leg parts she had were optimized for those conditions. So Fefnir had jumped back and Phantom wasn't the one to carry him away because whoever took Harpuia needed cover to extract him, and the heavy-hitter & the agile, flight-capable one could cover Leviathan better than Fefnir and Leviathan could have covered Phantom.

Zero's body rolled and surged to his feet, eyes darting from Fefnir (the closest enemy), to Leviathan (the most vulnerable, encumbered and with her back turned) to Phantom (the air support ready to swoop down on him once he committed himself to attacking either of the others).

Fefnir reviewed his enemy's options. Chase Leviathan and expose his back to both of them, attack Fefnir and hopefully be pinned down long enough for Leviathan to get back, go after Flizard or Cubit and hope they died (as fast as the other judges) before the Guardians could close in and assault him, or... Fefnir recognized that light. Teleport in an armor? Damn, that was the last thing they needed, something to make him even tougher…

_Hell._

This armor shouldn't make Zero all that tougher. It had been designed and built by the Maverick Hunters, not Dr. Wily. This was the second-to-last thing they needed: for him to have flight capability.

"What do you know, it does make him look like a damn vampire," an even freakier one than Schilt, Fefnir muttered under his breath as he raised his cannons and tried to target the swooping figure. At least the neon on the Absolute Zero armor's wings made it easy to tell which one he was. Since Fefnir wasn't bothering to charge the shots, going for rate of fire and hoping to get a few hits in, he didn't have to dig his claws into the ground and could keep backing up.

Omega dealt with the distraction first, almost casually batting Schilt out of his way. Down towards the ground.

Cubit appeared at her fellow judge's side almost instantly, uncloaking to reveal a few elves floating among her orbs.

_Hell._ She'd fought Harpuia! Were the judges all so damn rusty that she didn't know what was going to happen when she presented a target of opportunity like that? And just because X sentenced the Judges to a lifetime of community service instead of death didn't mean he was a fool. They'd had their armor reduced more than the Guardians had! Especially a damn stealth unit!

Cubit was knocked off her feet by Omega's dive before Schilt regained his, the elves scattering out of grabbing range except for a magic type and a hacker type.

As soon as he saw that, Fefnir knew the explosion was coming. What he hadn't expected was the type of explosion. They hadn't made elves with the kinetic force program in _years_. The fire, ice and electricity types were more versatile, since Neo Arcadia used half its magic elves for public works projects. All kinetic elves could do was hit something really hard, which was rarely much use outside of a fight unless there was something in your way, which was what conventional explosives were for. Who'd use an elf just to send a boulder flying?

This, though, was worth it. Getting that thing off the two judges was good: sending him flying _away _from Neo Arcadia was better. They'd even angled the blast so he didn't end up any closer to that little hill Leviathan had created and brought Harpuia to since even a semi-defensible position was better than nothing. That was just like Leviathan, though, to fort up. He'd really envied her abilities back then. The South Pole, Greenland and other iced-over areas were the safest places on the planet. She could create an instant base, riddle a glacier with bolt-holes, create pit-traps that would let light infantry pass but crack under the weight of larger mechanaloids. The damp was hell on reploid systems, but a thick enough layer of ice would actually provide enough insulation for humans to be okay if they bundled up.

Fefnir's troops fought Weil's forces on the ground. Harpuia struck and destroyed, both bases and strategic targets, cutting Weil's supply lines and keeping him from gaining enough factories to win by outproducing them. Phantom's scouted behind enemy lines and watched their forces and camps for infiltrators.

The Meikai broke in to entrenched prison camps and production bases, suffering the worst casualty rate of them all, to rescue humans and newbuilt reploids. She'd even taken the damn babies from Weil's human factories when they were nothing but squalling mouths to feed and targets for those who hated Weil. Fefnir didn't want to know how many of their own damn troops Phantom's had to kill or execute for trying to break into those nurseries.

All that and they'd died so damn easily.

He still remembered the conference where they'd brought it out into the open, after months of telling her that she was insane. X had put his head in his hands so none would see him weep, but he hadn't sided with her when Phantom and Fefnir had said what everyone knew.

She'd said, voice cold as ice, that surely they didn't want her to leave them in Weil's hands. Which meant that what they were really asking her to do was order her troops to murder defenseless children.

Out of the corner of his eye, Fefnir had seen X's shoulders shake then, just for a moment, before he regained control. And still said nothing.

She'd leaned forward over the conference table and told them that if they wanted someone to kill those babies, they'd have to do it themselves.

With their own armies.

And that was that. Because the Meikai's refugee camps were buried deep in the ice to hide them from Weil. Even the guards Phantom had stationed in them didn't know where they were. Snow had fallen everywhere it would stay put whenever there was enough moisture in the air since the war began, courtesy of the weather control system. Weil had taken it out months ago at that point, but Harpuia and Leviathan had already done enough to air and water currents to trigger the start of a mini ice age.

They all knew she'd won, and X had fled the room, feeling too much for even him to handle. Fefnir and Phantom hadn't wanted to do it that badly, but now they, and Harpuia, had something to tell the troops who wanted to know why those spawn of Satan were allowed to live. Weil had to come first. Then… something would have to be done about Leviathan's threat to mutiny and the children she was crouched over like a damn dragon and its eggs.

X had somehow managed to sweep all of that under the rug when the war was over, keep everyone unified by the struggle of Neo Arcadia and the promise those genes could be removed and overwritten, or at least not allowed into the next generation. They hadn't had the resources for that kind of research, but X made it happen. He had to.

Humanity never had a lot of genetic diversity, but now the population was barely sustainable without that research.

And if it meant he could save children, X would always move heaven and earth. Yet so many of them, so many, died. If X hadn't been there, Leviathan and those children would have shattered Neo Arcadia's cohesiveness. The Third Elf War would have been against her and those she protected, even if the three of them would have backed her.

What resources they still had left would have been wasted. What people they still had left would have died on Antarctica's plains, when those crazy women came out to cut up what remained of Earth's people, and the world would have ended in ice.

X was willing to compromise his principles for the sake of the world, which was why the world was still here. Leviathan wasn't: come hell and high water, they'd tear the world apart between them before she stopped fighting. And she'd enjoy it, just like Fefnir would. Fefnir watched the conflict between X and Weil's beliefs and principles and decided not to have any. He'd protect the people in front of him, family and troops, because there was nothing else. Justice? That and five zenny couldn't get Leviathan baby formula. If the world refused to bend to Leviathan's will, she'd fight and fight and keep fighting after she was dead, smiling as the last of her enemy died in the cold darkness.

She was his sister, after all.

As Omega hit the ground, two of the nurse elves darted back to Cubit and Schilt and revived them. The hacker elf hadn't sacrificed itself: Fefnir was pretty sure that was this group's commander. That was a good move, as much as it grated on him for four lives to end to save two. Two who were certain to just get themselves killed again. Speaking of which, "Flizard!" he called as he charged towards Omega?

"Yes, Guardian?"

"You're no use here. Get back to the city: Childre and Biblio'll need some help." Some help used to making the terrible choices. Not to mention that Childre was tied down by guard duty and Biblio had better be researching, since they needed to come up with some bright idea here and that damn well wasn't Fefnir's specialty. For example, here he was charging towards what had been Omega after coaxing Aurora back into his body. What happened if she broke down again, did anything to his systems or Wily hacked her to get to him? There was a reason he made it very clear to everyone that they were not allowed to expect anything but ass-roasting out of him, so if they expected more it was their own damn fault if they didn't get it.

Damn right he hated responsibility. Responsibility always ended up meaning responsiblity for the people who died. Because people _were _going to die, so he'd rather follow orders and hope whoever was choosing the slain knew what they were doing. So he'd have to trust that Harpuia set some plan in motion for Neo Arcadia's sake before he headed down here. Harpuia was the strategist: the big picture was his job.

Flizard didn't respond for a moment, running alongside him with the three-toed feet of his combat form. Childre would have told Fefnir to go to hell: the damn rabbit had mellowed out over the years, but there had been a mad desperation about him back then, even when he was fighting them and knew that wouldn't save anything. He and Leviathan'd been too damn much alike. Flizard was the other one Leviathan fought most often: he ran the reploid factories. He and Childre started out hating each other, because Flizard mistook Childre's lashing out for enthusiasm and Childre mistook Flizard's conscientiousness for actually wanting to make more reploids to serve Weil and suffer.

At least Flizard was thinking of what he would say and what Fefnir would say in response instead of speaking without thinking, which was why Fefnir didn't growl at him to hurry up and respond.

He had a duty to defend Master X's children? His armament was a flamethrower & he was likely the least skilled person left since at least Cubit and Schilt had assisted Phantom on stakeouts. Flizard wouldn't be doing much defending.

Fefnir had no doubt he still had a death wish, but Master X had given them a _life _sentence. He would _want _to sacrifice himself for the four of them, but Flizard was introspective and rational enough to realize that was just what he wanted, not what he truly should do.

"I understand," Flizard said finally. In addition to Neo Arcadia's ongoing attempts to harvest geothermal power (the Ring of Fire became much more unstable after the Cataclysm and Weil's world-sundering hadn't helped) without risking the loss of expensive power plants, he also assisted… Had assisted Tanz in overseeing much of the city's manufacturing & industrial base. If Neo Arcadia's people had to flee, then in order for the reploid species to survive, not only would scientists have to be sent out but factories established elsewhere. The human survivors could try to forage in Area Zero, but the new reploids were designed to ingest the materials their self-repair systems needed in specific powdered forms. There were plenty of engineers who would know the formulae, but if no one stopped Omega there was so much that would have to be rebuilt.

Again. At least he, Biblio and Childre had been there the second time civilization rebuilt. If Master X hadn't been there for the first one, Neo Arcadia would never have succeeded in time. He wanted to ask where Master X was, why it had come to this, but Fefnir had already given him his orders and he had no right to question the Guardians or Master X. "I will do what I can," he said to himself more than Fefnir and spun around. He had an internal teleport system, but it appeared that right now the teleport network would only register signals from dedicated capsules. He'd have to make it back to the city on foot.

Covering the ground in long strides he hoped for a few seconds that Omega would attack him as he retreated, giving the Guardians a chance to stop it as he died.

When he reached one of the entry bays and switched out of his combat form, he reflected as his white and gold robe settled around him that after all his years as a Judge, he was still trying to escape his sentence. Part of him still thought he belonged in the fires of Weil's hell.

Master X would surely be saddened if he knew. Flizard would do what he could for Master X's people, to protect him from any more sadness.

* * *

_Rudyard Kipling. Who is in the public domain. Off the top of my head:_

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains/ and the women come out to cut up what remains/ then roll to your rifle and blow out your brains/And die, die, die like a soldier.


	49. Those We Hold Dear

_This was originally posted as part of the chapter before it as a bonus: since the sudden transition confused people a bit, I'm doing a little housekeeping and posting it as its own chapter before I write what it's leading in to. _

_Normally delays in fic updating are due to my typical abysmal health, but this time it's that I finally got home after two months away from my game systems to find _Shadow Hearts: From The New World_ & _Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2_ waiting for me. Oh, and two months' worth of chores, and a lot of disability benefit-related stuff, but the awesome cosmic horror + screwy history & cosmic horror + mythorgasmic computerized demon summoning's the main reason. _

_I have no regrets._

* * *

If the Zan'ei ever had a rule against running in the halls, other than 'if you're clumsy or careless enough to run into anyone, you'll be doing training obstacle courses until your legs fall off,' it would have been suspended for the duration of the not-quite-emergency that was deploying everything possible while Class 2 Minimum Power severely restricted their communication options. Judge Biblio had reactivated the announcement & communications screens just long enough for the populace to be informed of what was going on and all waste-licensed humans and reploids ordered to head to the nearest deployment area, but even though civilians in non-essential positions had been ordered to remain in their rooms as much as possible to get them out of the way, some of those positions weren't actually non-essential under the circumstances.

Neo Arcadia didn't have com systems in private complexes. Punching through all these meters of concrete and who-knew-what-elseused too much power to let just anyone do it, and no one had installed wires for them when the buildings were constructed. There were public com centers civilians could use to send and access messages, take courses & research in public databases, but they were shut down and using them to contact someone even in normal circumstances meant hoping the other person checked their messages anytime soon.

Despite all the urgent calls for everything from technicians of every stripe to retired architects (who used their skills not just to improve the city's systems but figure out the layouts of ancient ruins and bases), the first people Tech Kraken sent the Zan'ei patrol officers to conscript were the private courier services.

During the Elf War, humans old enough to be rational but far too young to fight were worked almost as hard as everyone else. It wasn't just that reploids would have resented humans that were able to work failing to contribute, it was that the young humans were with them either because their caretakers were fighting or they'd lost their entire family and support structure. They had to be kept busy, either because they insisted on it or the distraction was the only thing keeping them from curling up into balls and refusing to eat.

A lot of the older ones lied about their age, but if they couldn't meet certain physical requirements they were a liability on the battlefield. The others, well, in a war of attrition, fought with rapidly dwindling resources as the world broke down for a second time, there were always things that needed doing or fixing, new bases that had to be constructed or retrofitted in a hurry when the last position fell or an offensive succeeded.

Since Weil targeted the adults, when Neo Arcadia was built the majority of the designers and technicians were ten to seventeen-year-old humans, although Master X set out the overall structure and reviewed their plans before ordering them implemented.

The others? They weren't strong enough for the hard physical labor of construction so, like before, they were sent to find people and give them messages. When a base was under com silence and everyone was working, the fastest way to call a staff meeting was to send the children to fetch all the officers.

If anything, the din of the massive construction site and the chaos geography created by buildings rising & material piles being gathered, delivered & used up made the couriers even more important. Construction foremen couldn't leave their work sites just to spend several hours hunting for someone who knew where the promised steel delivery had gotten to when they had work to do: it was children who had the time to hunt for people and the agility to take shortcuts without tripping and knocking over a stack of pipes.

Once Neo Arcadia was stable enough that everyone was moved into permanent purpose-built offices with phone lines between them the city's need for couriers was greatly reduced, although it didn't disappear entirely. These days, part of the training for new human Zan'ei officers was acting as couriers, since it trained their knowledge of the city, ability to plan routes, speed and agility while doing something more useful than running obstacle courses that weren't constantly changing.

So of course every single office of the city had sent out their stationed courier for the first thing that popped into their heads, and then called the highest Zan'ei office they had the clearance to reach demanding more. Which was why Tech Kraken had ordered all his couriers out before they made those calls, sending them to the addresses of the heads of the private courier companies & messaging all the beat cops to act as town criers and ask for volunteers in the areas that were still crowded. They'd come: most of them had made it here for cookies in their youth, and courier companies had to stay on good terms with the Zan'ei unless they wanted to be shut down for professional negligence. The teenage humans they hired as runners had to be good, but accidents happened and so did injuries.

Their employees had to learn how to memorize messages too, since a lot of people didn't keep paper and pens lying around. The couriers would sell you paper and the loan of a pen, but that was an extra fee. Letters were associated with bad news, too, since there were some things people shouldn't have to hear from a stranger. Packages cost even more, depending on how heavy & unwieldy they were.

So when two _reploids _ran into the foyer of the Zan'ei building, where the line Craft stood in to volunteer was now packed with couriers, with more coming in as their bosses knocked on their doors or they told a neighbor the news on the way, they were forced to slow down to make their way through the crowd. Yet not as much as one would have thought.

One of them wore the white coat of a scientist or a doctor. He balked at the sight of all those people and moved through the crowd almost gingerly, but everyone who noticed the color he wore did what they could to get out of his way. Especially the ones who noticed that the name on his tag was written in green. This wasn't a Zan'ei coming back from an assignment, this was someone from the Rekku on a mission.

The other ducked and weaved through the crowd, placing his feet with seemingly-careless grace and slipping through gaps as though he knew when they would appear and was moving to the rhythm of the crowd. He was humming under his breath, and perhaps someone who noticed his un-reploid-like coordination might have thought he was a dancer. After all, "those move easiest who have learned to dance." Even humans started out with so little coordination they couldn't walk: practice made perfect.

A smarter observer would know that there was another profession that required a trained body: soldier. One who knew ancient history (so rare in Neo Arcadia!) would have recognized the song he was humming as far too martial and thirsty for the blood of tyrants to mean anything else.

_It is us they dare plan/to return to the old slavery!_

_To arms, citizens!_

Black hair that fell past the shoulders was unusual on a male model, but the black floppy beret perched on top of that hair proclaimed that he was an artist of some sort and artists were supposed to be eccentric. For that matter, who would trust an artist who looked ugly or dressed just like everyone else? Cultivating a personal style proved that he _had _style.

The two of them, despite entering the hall from different entrances, arrived at the same door at the same time. The scientist glanced at the other curiously, but he just smiled and hummed a little as the automatic doors opened for them. Once the doors closed behind them, he waved the other reploid aside. "Let me," he said as he quickly hit several of the floor buttons.

Cerveau stood stiffly, wincing as his upgraded systems detected the scan. Many forms of radiation were actually more harmful to unprotected reploids and machinery than unprotected humans. Beta radiation, for example, consisted of rogue electrons, when reploids did so much of their thinking with electrons. Between the sun and the radioactive furnace at the earth's core, humans were constantly bombarded by radiation. Their bodies were used to it. Yes, a reploid with built-in shielding was safer in a radioactive area than a human, and in 21XX that shielding was standard, but Neo Arcadian civilian models didn't need it and had to pay money if they wanted it.

As a matter of fact, Cerveau did have that shielding. For one thing, he was a member of the Rekku stationed in the wastes. For another, he worked with Dr. Ciel, and who knew what could happen if something went wrong with one of the experiments? He couldn't get her out of there in time if his processor was tripping out too much for it to occur to him. The only reason he even noticed the X-rays was that he worked with Dr. Ciel and more than half his job was making sure she was safe. He even had a rudimentary sense of smell, although it was designed to detect only a few things like carbon monoxide. _Humans _couldn't smell carbon monoxide, so Cerveau was well aware it wasn't much compared to the original reploid systems, the ones designed to give them human capabilities.

The elevator started up after the scan finished. Truth to tell, Cerveau felt more than a little bad about using it. The city was on a Minimum Power setting, and this was wasteful.

Still, he told himself, he didn't remember his way around this building and he had no idea where the headquarters was. He'd been told to report as soon as he could and there was only one thing they'd call such an experienced technician away for right now, when they were swamped with soldiers in need of repairs.

The door opened onto a hallway with blank white walls. Cerveau grimaced as he looked it over through his orange visor: more scanners. The other guy had gotten several steps ahead of him by the time Cerveau gritted his teeth and stepped out of the elevator: Cerveau hurried to catch up, since who know how long whatever this reploid had to report would take.

"Ah, Dr. Cerveau. You made good time," Tech Kraken said without turning around when the final door opened. Cerveau wasn't surprised: the declassified portions of Tech Kraken's special systems had been one of his case studies. "Lieutenant Hirondelle?"

"Craft appeared in our office, right in front of Neige." In 21XX, Neo Arcadia would have been under a teleport shield. Since elves could punch right through them like they weren't even there, the city didn't bother. It was just a waste of power. "Since I wouldn't be much use debriefing him," he said, flipping his hair back as he blatantly lied, "I volunteered to report his reappearance and ask what of what he knows isn't classified. Other than footage of this Area Zero Guardian Leviathan said was for release."

"There's no one here who can decide that."

Hirondelle shrugged. "Then I'll be waiting around all day." The seeming statement was half-question: should he go back or did the Zan'ei need all its agents right now?

"Go back to ANN. With the screens shut down," and their computer systems, "they'll have nothing to do but gather and distribute information." They couldn't even get at Craft's footage. "Tell Neige that if she gets anything classified out of her husband, we'll conscript her." Neige had seemed like one of those people born or built to be in the Zan'ei until she realized this meant not telling people the interesting stuff she found out. "No, hold on a moment," he said when Hirondelle took that as a dismissal. "Take a look at this." He activated one of the screens and turned his chair to face them. Without looking back at the screen, he said, "This is where the others reappeared. As you can see," the camera panned over, "Guardian Leviathan left to join the others fighting Omega, but they're not heading towards the city. We were ordered by Guardian Harpuia not to enter that area, but an order from Master X overrides General Harpuia's commands." That meant Cerveau. "The information about the Guardians you can reveal."

Hirondelle nodded: the others would assume it was an apology for the Zan'ei for not being able to let them at the declassified parts of what Craft knew yet. "I'll run damage and rumor control." As usual.

"Now all four of the Guardians have engaged the God of Destruction." Tech folded two of his tentacle arms together in front of him, looking like the offspring of an albino squid and an ancient Hindu god himself. "The missing Judges haven't reappeared in the city, either. Are they dead? Has the God of Destruction already grown too powerful for them to stand against? Master X never allowed them to fight him during the Elf Wars, although that was also because of the Dark Elf. Under the circumstances, someone without your loyalty might wonder why Guardian Harpuia gave the orders he did."

What Tech Kraken was insinuating left Cerveau's eyes wide behind his glasses. The city falling? If a rumor like that started, the city would panic! There would be a raid on the supplies needed to support the troops, vehicles would be stolen, unprotected citizens would die in the wastes: it would be a nightmare. If a rumor like that started, because someone so highly placed in the Zan'ei said something like this?

But Tech Kraken was talking to one of the people whose job was to control rumors and what information was spreading around the city through unofficial channels, so Hirondelle only nodded. "So shall I take my leave?"

"Move." Tech's directness only made the delicacy he'd handled the previous statement with more obvious.

Hirondelle removed his beret and made a sweeping bow, then whirled and ran back down the corridor.

"Why wasn't I sent coordinates and sent straight to a teleporter?" Cerveau asked the Kraken, beginning to get a little angry. "Dr. Ciel…"

"…Has someone else from the Joint Protection Initiative with her." Tech didn't mention that it was little Lark, who didn't look very impressive, instead of the Rekku officer or the one Tech was currently filtering out of the image. Half the armies had seen 'Master X's' Seraph armor during the annual training campaigns. "As well as one of her old projects. She's needed there, or General Leviathan would have told her to come to us with _this_." Now he restored everything to the image, pointing with a cable to the one without wings.

"That's…" Who else could he be? With Omega right there for comparison? The God of Destruction Weil had built in the legendary Zero's image, to torment Master X and have enough power to oppose him?

"What tools might she need? Aside from elves." There were plenty already out there: they'd come if called by someone who had arrived with Guardian Leviathan.

"I brought the portable toolkit with me. It's the one she put together herself, to work on him." He'd let her think he didn't know what she was up to because that would involve explaining why either he wasn't reporting her or she was allowed to observe Zero, which might encourage her to see if she could get away with tampering with the sleeping hero.

Ciel was Ciel, after all. He'd hoped the grayish hair might make her think of him as older and wiser (that was why he'd gotten hair that color, since it seemed to help humans get listened to) but honestly, he doubted she'd even noticed it.

Tech Kraken knew that Ciel hadn't even been mentioned in the message, but he instantly came to the same conclusion Cerveau had: why else would he be summoned like this?

* * *

_Hirondelle is fond of "The War Song of the Army of the Rhine," which is known under another name as the French national anthem. It's a _very _bloodthirsty song written around the French Revolution, if you look at a more direct translation. Very appropriate to someone who was in a revolutionary army trying to kill and overthrow leaders who ignored the suffering of the common people. Kind of similar to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, too, although the Battle Hymn is more about 'let justice triumph and free the slaves,' while the French national anthem is more, 'Let's kill the bastards and water our fields with their blood!' The official translation into English has very little in common with what those words actually mean._


	50. Blood Running Cold

_So I finished the three most interesting endings of Devil Survivor 2 and all the bonus bosses, but then Devil Survivor 2 made me think of Evangelion (there are a lot of references), and I watched the two Rebuild movies and that reminded me of an old concept I had for a story..._

_But the vacation from regular updates is now officially over. _

* * *

Leviathan practically dumped Harpuia at Lark's feet. "See what you can do. _Not _you," she told Ciel, putting her arm in front of her when she started moving towards the Guardian. "I need you to do whatever it takes to wake Zero up."

Ciel only looked at her for a moment, long enough to see that the Guardian was indeed serious. "Okay," she said, because what else could she say, in the face of Omega? She only had one duffel bag with her, filled with more papers than tools, but if it had to be done, it had to be done.

A teleport beam had both Leviathan and Copy-X whirling around to face the newcomer, who had the sense to place them between his arrival point and Omega.

"Good timing, Dr. Cerveau. Go over there and Dr. Ciel with Zero," Leviathan ordered, hefting her spear again and starting to resume direct control of the nanites in her water and ice supply.

"What?" What in Light's name?

"Are your audio receptors malfunctioning or are you questioning my orders?" she barked, because it had damn well better not be the second, not when Phantom and Fefnir were out there.

"'Over there?' Stay here? Keep Dr. Ciel, an unarmored human, on a battlefield? Absolutely not!" Cerveau's eyes flashed behind his orange protective visor. That was reploid for 'I am _really _pissed, pissed enough to risk a Zan'ei knocking me out before I can start a fight in a crowded area.'

"Are you flaring your optics at me? You have your damn orders!"

"Cerveau, she's right, if we go back to Neo Arcadia there'll be all those walls in the way," Ciel tried to say reasonably, "We can't afford paper and gold isn't very different from yellow." Copy-X winced at that, but even Ciel's guardian was too upset to notice such an obvious sign that something was wrong with her.

"I do not take orders from you!" Cerveau said, the part of him that wasn't enraged amazed by what was coming out of his mouth and whose face he was saying it too. "I take orders from Guardian Harpuia and Master X himself! Dr. Ciel is vital to the future of Neo Arcadia, and yes, I can see that the city's immediate survival is in danger," from one glance at _that _battle, "But I have my orders! Repairing Master Zero can only go faster in a proper lab, with proper equipment!"

"Ignorant newbuilts should…"

_Clang_.

Lieutenant Elpis had caught Cerveau's hand. She only gave him a narrow glare before his arm was pinned behind his back and she'd caught the other one. "How dare you!" Trying to strike one of the Guardians!

Leviathan took a deep breath, and another, as though her processor needed to be air-cooled. "Let him go, Lieutenant, I was also out of line. Dr. Cerveau, there is _nothing _in Neo Arcadia that will help wake Zero up. No equipment that will work any better than portable hand-scanners, elves and a trained eye. And I _do not have time _to explain things like that to you. Do you see that?" She pointed at mud-streaked armor. "That is my brother, my twin, who I have known several times longer than you have been alive, that I am leaving here and ordering both of you to ignore him and work on Zero, when for all I know he was hit with something corrosive that is already halfway done eating his processor from the inside. _That _is how serious this is. Do you understand me? If we fall here, there is nowhere you can run to where Dr. Ciel will be safe. If you want her to live, then damn well do what you're told. Do you copy?" That last question was asked with false cheer, through a false smile that was more teeth than anything else beneath diamond-hard eyes.

"Yes, Guardian," he said, suddenly ashamed. He should have known, should have trusted that the Guardians wouldn't just throw away Dr. Ciel's life, that there had to be some danger great enough to justify an order that sounded so insane.

She didn't even bother to acknowledge his acknowledgement before she spun back around and leapt onto ice that rose to meet her feet, running towards the battlefield without letting her heels touch the ice, allowing only the minimum of friction necessary for traction to slow her pace.

It was only then that Copy-X registered that someone from the Zan'ei had accompanied Cerveau: he'd hung back during the argument, as shocked as the rest of them but he hadn't dared try to restrain Dr. Cerveau the way Elpis had, not when Dr. Cerveau was acting on Master X's orders.

Copy-X's orders, the young reploid realized. His own orders: that was why this scene had just happened. Someone had almost hit General Leviathan instead of listening to her when it was so important because they thought the orders of a fake were the real thing, trumped those of someone who was real, who understood the situation… No, he shouldn't blame himself for all of it, he knew. It was clear that Dr. Cerveau cared a lot about Ciel, which made him happy except he couldn't take the time to speak with him now, not when they needed to get to work.

"There's no response," Lieutenant Lark reported: to him, since Guardian Leviathan had left. "I don't think General Harpuia is wounded: if I can't fix it, it isn't something that an elf that heals physical damage could help, either."

"Thank you for trying," he told her semi-automatically, trying to calm her down a little and reassure her that it certainly wasn't her fault. "See if you can help Dr. Ciel." So she had something to do.

"Yessir," she said with a quick salute that was closer to the Zan'ei's than the Rekku's as Copy-X turned around halfway, so he could look at either Zero or the battlefield by turning his head.

X's sensors showed him where Judge Cubit was, and he hoped she knew that Master Zero's systems likely did the same – but why would they? Zero had never fought Judge Cubit, so he might not have decoded her stealth system, and there was no reason for Weil to give Omega the counter to it when he might need to recapture Omega. A stealth unit had the best chance of getting close enough to a berserk giant. Copy-X hoped that Cubit remembered when Master X had started seeing through her illusions, so she was ready for Omega to start doing the same.

Omega leapt into the air after recovering from the crash, and his target was clearly Guardian Phantom, or that was what Copy-X thought. Fefnir could fire into the air all he wanted, Leviathan and Cubit doing the same with their weaker shots, but if Omega took out their air support, held the high ground?

Copy-X still had wings, but after seeing Schilt hit casually to the ground like that, how Cubit had to put herself in danger and spend those elves to recover him? For all his training, Copy-X still felt like such an amateur compared to the others out there. Phantom barely used his armed phenomenon form, but he was still holding his own with a combination of anti-air fire and the Cross Star, four blades joined at the hilt that hummed through the air when deployed from his body and were clearly remote-controlled, since their trajectories didn't make any sense otherwise. That was a good idea, it meant Omega had three things in the air to keep track of, and one of them was smaller than the others.

Even though Copy-X's seraph armor was very ornamental and so the design was far from strictly practical, it was still clear that the oversized wings of Omega's armor didn't have the maneuverability of either Schilt's combat-tested design or Phantom's armed phenomenon mode, which had almost entirely sacrificed humanoid appearance for a strange sort of maneuverability, sometimes spinning like the Cross Star or helicopter blades to hover and sometimes using the jets on either side of each of the wings to either move like a more conventional plane or abruptly change the angle or direction of the spin, sending it back the way it had come as Omega sped past it and had to spend precious fractions of a second stopping and turning around while everyone else hit him with whatever they could.

Copy-X wanted to smile, because it looked like they were doing very well, and he'd like to think that, but he'd learned a little too much history. In a drawn out fight or a stalemate, wouldn't Omega win eventually, by virtue of that system, the one Copy-X himself supposedly had? And Omega had placed himself out of reach of the heavy hitters. Harpuia was the master of air combat and he was already down. Omega hadn't taken to the skies until he was.

That was smart, which wasn't very reassuring. If Harpuia was up there while Omega was maneuvering like a lame duck, Copy-X was sure that those wings would already be scrap metal, pieces pared away by Harpuia's sabers until Harpuia kicked him to the ground, into the waiting arms (meaning weapons) of Fefnir and Leviathan.

Phantom had to know this too-And as soon as Copy-X thought that was when Phantom moved in, teleporting away his armed phenomenon mode to return to his normal body. None of the momentum of his other form carried over, and dash boots let him easily make the jump to Omega's back, kunai plunging into the front of where the right wing met the body armor, using the angle there to guide his blow as his other arm wrapped around Omega's throat for purchase.

Audio receptors turned up to max, Copy-X thought that despite the distance, the noise of the wind and the noise of the battle he heard a laugh that seemed familiar somehow.

Phantom fell. At first it seemed almost deliberate, since his arm had removed itself from where it was braced under Omega's jaw, but it was clear as his fall continued and he didn't do anything to change his trajectory or try to survive the fall that if he'd tried to get away from Omega to avoid whatever knocked Harpuia out, he hadn't made it in time.

Schilt dived forward to catch him: Copy-X couldn't see what happened, but after he did both of them went tumbling to the ground. Leviathan had an arc of ice over their heads a moment after the two of them hit: she must want to give them an instant's protection, a bit of breathing room to see if either of them could catch their breath and recover, move away to present a less tempting target before anyone else got close to them. Cubit was already running under it, though, and…

The air suddenly got colder, and Copy-X saw Leviathan physically shove at the air with her hands, which she never did to control her ice since that would be telegraphing her moves, to sweep away the barrier which hid Phantom.

Just in time to see Phantom withdraw a kunai from between Cubit's eyes, to watch her body slide down off the other buried in her stomach, the blade slitting her torso open all the way to her throat as she did.

Behind Copy-X, the hum of a beam saber's activation, the whine as it carved its way through alloy with an energy-disruption surface and Lieutenant Elpis' indeterminate noise of surprise, somewhere between a gasp and a scream cut off too quickly to be a scream were almost simultaneous.

Trained reflex made Copy-X brace his feet on the ground and fire his thrusters behind him: that was all that saved Lieutenant Lark from meeting Harpuia's other beam saber.

The Guardian had raised his arm up to protect his optics, and Copy-X saw the burn on his gauntlet quickly heal over, burnt black returning to sage green.

But the black was now more appropriate, because the Guardian's optics were red, Copy-X saw with horrified eyes as Lieutenant Lark screamed.

Maverick. But the Guardians… This shouldn't happen! Not to Master X's children! Or that was what Copy-X wanted to think, what his emotions were screaming at him, but he knew. Master X had lost plenty of children to the virus, hadn't he, before the creation of the Mother Elf.

All of them, in fact.

But they had cyber-elves here, and some of them were even coming in response to Lark's scream. They could fix this, they could cure this now…

Harpuia, instead of taking advantage of one of the many openings Copy-X was sure he was offering spread his wings and jetted towards the battlefield, towards where Leviathan was trying to hold off an Omega who had dismissed the not-entirely-useless armor while Phantom ducked and weaved his way through the fire Fefnir was laying down to force him to keep his distance.

Both of them. He'd, he'd taken both of them. And Fefnir, and Leviathan, how could they fight their family? How could they fight Omega with two who knew their styles so well waiting, ready to make a move the instant either of them committed themselves to a more effective attack?

Ignoring Lark, who knelt by the side of the fallen Elpis and healed her without using an elf to cure any virus that might be there (did the young Lark know what to do?), Copy-X followed Harpuia's example and spread his own wings, engaged his own thrusters.

Even if he should stay out of this, even if there was a risk one Leviathan or Fefnir might get distracted trying to keep him from getting killed, he couldn't stand by and watch any of them die, or even worse watch them kill their own family, under the influence of the Maverick Virus or not.

He couldn't.


	51. Rose and Fell

"What's your name?" he heard someone say.

Everything was dark, like his optics were disconnected, yet somehow that didn't bother Copy-X. A stray thought noted that he was glad he'd turned off the blushing when he said, "I don't have one." Then he added, "Yet," because he didn't want to worry this person.

"Why not?"

"'Well... the only two things I could think of for names, one of them is just really pretentious and the Guardians would never let me use it," And they'd be right, "and the other ends with an A, and I don't think... I'm used to identifying as a male model, so a female model wouldn't feel like me." Not to mention that the stuff he'd have to do to be a female model, the remodeling: he just didn't see any point to it, and it would be time spent not looking after the city. Resources that other people could have used, people who wanted to use them to show the world who they were. "And shortening it to Arcade would... I don't like gambling or taking chances." Not when most of his decisions involved people and their lives.

"…You wanted to name yourself after Neo Arcadia?"

"Well, they said... It should be something important. Something that was me, and..." The city, even if it wasn't his city, was what he had chosen to take care of. "That's the one thing I've already decided on for myself, even though I just started doing it because they needed me to. But I like being needed, I like making a difference." He liked looking down and seeing people whose lives were better, who could live in peace and do what _they _wanted to do, because of him.

"...There's nothing else, really?" the voice asked coaxingly.

"Nothing that feels like me." Maybe it was embarrassing that he didn't have broader interests. Copy-X guessed he wasn't a very interesting person. Fefnir always said that 'all work and no play made Jack a dull newbuilt,' but he _liked _what he did. "I guess most of the problem is that I'm already used to being called something, so to be called something else would be weird."

"X, yes?"

"…Yes," Copy-X confessed, even though he knew he shouldn't reveal that. He wasn't quite sure why it seemed like he should, that it would be okay.

"You know..." The voice said, sounding like one of the Guardians about to tell him a story. "X wasn't really meant to be X's name, either. It was the name of the project, a working name. A long time ago, people who couldn't write their names would sign with the letter X. It was a placeholder that could turn out to be any name."

"Infinite potential," Copy-X realized.

"Yes." Exactly. What a bright boy. "Dr. Light expected him to choose his own name. X just... got used to being called that, and liked that his father had picked out something to mean him that... embodied his hopes for X. That he could be anyone, be just himself. So if something can be your name just because you're used to being called it… Aren't there people who when they say X, they mean you?"

"Well, yes, but… Not just me." The person he was trying to live up too.

"Humans share names too, you know. They were passed down in families. How do you think X would feel about his children giving his name to the newbuilt they decided to raise, to care for? Especially when that newbuilt is such a responsible young man, someone who has decided, of his own free will, to care for others? To make Neo Arcadia into a place he, and its people, can be proud of?"

Now he _did _have to blush, because he didn't know how else to express a feeling like this, both warm and overwhelming enough it made him feel small. "Do you really think that Master X would be proud of me?"

"That's not what matters. What matters is that you're the beloved child of the children he loves dearly. Don't think that you have to prove yourself to anyone, especially those who love you. But yes. 'He' is proud of you. And he'd rather you considered him your grandfather… X." Young X, little X. "Now, don't you have any other questions?"

He was very grateful for the change of subject, because how he felt about this was so… "What happened? And I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are."

"…Ah. So that's why you're so calm about all of this," the voice said gently. "Sometimes, throwing away painful memories is the right thing to do, especially for humans." Thank goodness reploids didn't have those pain system glitches. "If it's something in the past, then why let it weigh you down? But sometimes, and I know now is one of those times, the only way to overcome something is to face it. Check your data storage: I think you'll find that you've locked some of your most recent files."

"Yes." He found them easily, but he hesitated to unlock them.

"Did you leave yourself a message, or are they just associated with how you felt when you locked them?"

"It… scares me. Like I won't be myself anymore."

"Do you really think that? Think that your self isn't strong enough to withstand a few memories, a little knowledge? I don't agree with you. I think that you've already learned how to decide who you are, to choose what matters to you. I don't think that you're weak enough to let anything anyone says overrule your own choices, your own free will. Isn't that why you locked this? Because you would not, could not tolerate anything that would infringe on your desire to protect what matters to you, anything that tried to tell you who you were that clashed with your own choices?"

"That, that might be right." What else was there that could scare him this much? The guardians dying, his city being destroyed? Even if Omega somehow managed to turn all of Neo Arcadia into a crater, even if the Guardians gave their lives trying to stop him, there would still be people out there. His people, their people. The people Ciel had built him to protect, so she wouldn't want him to stop just because she died. "The only other thing I could think of that would make me feel this unhappy… I couldn't run away from that. I would have to run towards it." Find the people they had all died for, and find some way to protect them. To make the loss of his family not be in vain.

"But you're still afraid, still worried."

"Yes." He wasn't reluctant to confess that at all. He knew he wasn't a very brave person, that he worried more than Harpuia.

"Worry is born of caring. If you care about something or someone, it's impossible not to worry about them. Even if they're in no real danger, even if they're the strongest person in the world, then if they're precious to you, then you don't want to lose them. You don't want them to suffer. So worry and fear are inevitable. They're born of the desire to protect that which you love. If you love something more than your own life, you'll fear for them more than you fear your own death."

"So I'm this afraid because what's in here will put everyone in danger? Or… Is it that me knowing this would put everyone in danger?"

He heard a gentle laugh. "Yes, I am proud of you." Tactile sensors clicked on (or were they clicked on?) and he felt arms around him that felt familiar somehow, like he recognized their measurements. "You're so smart and responsible already."

Copy-X… X wanted to duck his head and complain that this person was making him blush. It was embarrassing, but it was also nice. And reassuring. "Do you really think that it will be okay?"

"I'm here," he was told. "And I've seen what's in those files. Yes, it's very scary, and I don't blame you for rejecting all of it as hard as you could. But you don't need to. It's true, but it's been true all along, and you've never let it stop you before. Do you think that you can bear to relive it if I relive it with you? And then I'll tell you why you don't have to be afraid. Although I'm certain that you will still worry: there's nothing I or anyone else can do or say to stop you. Worry is inevitable when you care." When you had precious things, precious people.

"…Alright." This reminded him of so many times, especially early on, when he had to make a decision or attend a meeting where people would be counting on X to do the right thing, to know things and Copy-X was afraid. Didn't think he could do it on his own. Yet if he had one of the Guardians in a comm link, then even if they didn't tell him anything or he didn't need to ask him anything, then he felt less afraid. Because he knew that even if he nearly made a mistake, wasn't able to handle it, he could count on them to keep him from messing up, to protect the city. Even if he couldn't, they would, so he didn't have to be afraid. Well, cautious, yes, but not terrified of breaking something precious to him.

…Then he was hurtling through the air towards Omega itself, dusty ground strewn with rubble blurring a few feet beneath him, dual buster arms transformed into gauntlets because… because he knew that saber could deflect shots, so his best hope was to let it slice one of his hands so that he could use his other arm to pin it down. But mostly because fear, desperation and protectiveness were churning together inside him, combining into anger, into _fury_, and the thoughtful distance combat both X's style and Ciel's Seraph armor were really meant for was beyond him right now.

If he couldn't use them in the most effective way anyway, and Omega would have X's old style memorized, then the best thing was to be unpredictable. And fast. And fierce.

At least he could hope so. Maybe Omega wasn't used to people charging towards him instead of hanging back, trying to find some way to damage him or at least slow him down?

Omega easily side-stepped his arm, ducked under the wing Copy-X had lowered to hit him if he did that, and held the saber out first horizontally to catch Copy-X's side, then, as his momentum sent the young reploid tumbling over into the ground, used a couple precise kicks to make sure Copy-X ended up flat on his back with Omega's foot on his stomach.

…Oh, right, Copy-X belatedly realized. Omega would have fought Meikai. Never mind then.

Not just Meikai, either. The Second Elf War had been made of madness, when Weil tried to overwhelm the world with pain and fear. So there would have been plenty of people who moved beyond anything as simple as fear of death, even fear of destruction incarnate.

He felt very young and stupid.

On the other hand, Omega was looking down at him instead of going to help Harpuia or Phantom, so maybe Copy-X was at least managing to buy everyone some time?

He managed to keep the relief that he wasn't completely useless from showing on his face. Even the thought of what Harpuia and Phantom would say about this made him a little happy, because they'd have to be alive and themselves to come up with hellish training that would make sure he never did anything this stupid again.

"It's time to stop pretending," Omega said, and it didn't sound anything like Zero.

Copy-X blinked, startled. He knew this voiceprint. "Hello, um…"

The person in Omega's body laughed. "I might be flattered that you remembered me, but you have a copy of X's body. It would be pathetic if you didn't have automatic data collation and memory search."

"You're the person that helped us in Cyberspace." The person who was like Ciel. Despite the circumstances, it was hard for Copy-X to keep himself from lowering threat level and beginning to cool his systems, not to mention sighing with relief. Ciel was a good person, and he could definitely imagine her hacking into even something like Omega from Cyberspace to help someone she'd just met, but this wasn't her. This person's smirk wasn't just, 'Yes, I am just better than you,' or, 'You're lucky I decided to salvage the afts of you pieces of technology inferior to my genius,' but a nastier shade of gloating.

The smirk on Omega's face deepened, then he looked disgusted with himself. "It's hard to remember not to waste time gloating when it's just so much fun." He scowled, then the foot that was on Copy-X's stomach stamped on him. Not a fraction as hard as it could have, not enough to injure him. "Come on, time to get out of stealth mode."

"…But I'm not in stealth mode." Copy-X turned his head to the side and tried to raise one of his wings in a non-threatening manner so he could optically confirm what his systems were telling him. Nope, he definitely wasn't.

"That's what they're all programmed to say," the man said, in a very patronizing way, as though he was either speaking to someone stupid enough to need small words or someone who had better stop pretending they didn't know what he was talking about. "Zero infected you with the Maverick Virus when he woke up, and it had already completed infiltrating your systems by the time I examined them. So come on, the war's started: get the hell out of sleeper mode."

"…The Method programming?" Method, means. Those justified by the end. When Omega was the final letter, and Zero meant nothingness, like that left after everything was destroyed. "You're like Dr. Light?"

"…I'm _like Dr. Light?" _Omega's jaw dropped as he stared at Copy-X, too shocked at the young punk's daring to be furious. The blond hair that was swinging behind his back to guard it abruptly stopped, in defiance of gravity.

Copy-X tried to forestall what looked like a pretty impressive immanent explosion. "Well, I mean, like the AI he left. To look after X and the Guardians. They told me about him. I didn't mean to be insulting, I just meant that you're, well, a scientist from 20XX, and looking after Master Zero, and um, well…"

"Master Zero. Good. Now start attacking the people who love you so I can get on with this."

Copy-X was too confused to realize that he should have played along with this long enough for this man to let him get to his feet and put some distance between them. "But that's just what he would be called. Like Master X."

Omega's expression looked like he was one more bit of annoyance away from facepalming. "This is because I originally said I was human, isn't it. Well, I'm not. Most mavericks don't have the patience to torture humans, much do so by being deliberately annoying. I'm scanning your systems right now. You're saturated with the virus, your suffering circuit… You never had one to begin with."

At this point, Copy-X's mind was composed of too much pure, 'what?' to even qualify that with the human expression that meant something along the lines of, 'since there's only one reason anyone would do anything this absurd, what manner of deviant sexual practice are you engaged in?'

"Check your own blueprints," the man said. "And contrast with standard blueprints. See? No suffering circuit. You're a copy of X based on data obtained after he overwrote his. You've been a sociopath from the beginning, which explains why you didn't notice any difference when you were infected." He smirked. "You already were just using those around you and intended to wipe out humanity, lying to everyone: I knew you had to be genocidal."

The man was right, Copy-X knew. He didn't have a suffering circuit, the programming drawn from X to enable human compassion. So if he couldn't care about others, had he been lying to everyone this entire time, including himself?

His city, his people: was it just megalomania, all along? Were they only valuable to him because they were his possessions, his pawns? Was all his concern for them simply because they were useful?

That was when survival programming, his desire to defend his _self _from words that disproved it out of existence, proved everything he'd thought he was simply an illusion, shut off all non-vital processes to concentrate on compiling this data.

In other words, he'd blacked out, and his mind had decided that since there was no way to integrate this data with who he was, then the only way to remain himself was to seal it away.

"Zero never had a suffering circuit, and humans have an imperfect one," the voice told him. "The suffering circuit was written so… X could automatically care about everyone, after tests during hibernation showed that this was the optimal way to exist. It was a shortcut, a reminder system, instead of having to repeat the process of evaluating every single person he met when there wasn't any need to. Having a suffering circuit makes reploids aware of the existence of the feelings of others as soon as they're turned on: it's up to them whether they care about those feelings. They can choose not to: you're supposed to have the power to choose." Those arms still held him, were still there, even after hearing all of what the man in Omega's body had said.

The one who held him kept talking, his voice soothing, when Copy-X didn't have anything to say, couldn't respond except by fleeing from the truth again. Instead he stayed and listened, because he wanted to believe he deserved this trust, this compassion. "The system humans have: their hearts can only hold so many people dear to them. They only have room for so many family and friends. But, once they became sentient and began to think about other people, they realized that even people they had only met once, or would never meet, had feelings too. They could choose to remember that a starving child was a starving child, whether this was their own child, their first cousin, or a relative a hundred generations distant. They learned that _all _humans were kin, and had feelings just as valid as their own. Until they're old enough to understand this, human children can be very cruel to others because their hearts don't automatically send them alerts and they haven't written their own yet. They don't know what to be mindful of. But both humans and reploids have the ability to learn and develop their own programming.

"In order to become good people, humans _have _to realize that to care is a choice, and one they have a responsibility to make. Reploids have suffering circuits, most of you, and robot masters were logical. Most don't have to work as hard to be good people as humans do. That doesn't mean that humans are inherently evil. Labeling those who didn't work to become good people and care about others evil was a choice humans made. They realized that to hurt others was to hurt everyone, and the wise ones decided that since they didn't want to be hurt, they would work to become better than that, and by opposing evil they were simply protecting themselves. Reploids, all good people have that responsibility. The world is a place that is full of hardship and pain, but by working together we can change that, can impose our wills on the world. The more of us that work together, the more we can accomplish and the better a place the world can be for everyone. So by compassion, by caring about others and their welfare, by helping them, we help ourselves. There is no such thing as unselfishness because to help others_ is_ to help ourselves."

Fingers so like Copy-X's own twined together with his. "To bring happiness to others makes the world a happier place, and thus enables our own happiness. There is no need to discard or compromise ourselves and our own wishes for the benefit of others. Rather, as long as we remember that the world is made up of other people, we will find that the best course is to be ourselves, because there is no one else that can do for them exactly what you can, just as all of them can help you along your way, if they are wise enough to realize this. When any life ends, you and I are both diminished, because our world is a smaller place. We will never know what we could have learned from them, they can never help us achieve our own dreams. Do you think that Phantom is a good person?"

"…Yes?" Of course. "Phantom was the one who told me that, that everyone had their own wishes and feelings."

"He doesn't have a suffering circuit. Newtypes are immune because they don't trust their thoughts and emotions to shortcuts like that: they have to _think _about everything they think. Unfortunately, that makes them rather silly while they're young and still figuring out how to think, still learning the data they need to make good decisions. Axl was lucky a kind reploid took him in, and Axl saw the power the desire to help others had to help him, and how it helped Red in turn. Then there's Zero. _That man_," the words were laden with a sudden hatred that shocked Copy-X, compared to how peaceful the tone of every other word had been, "actively tried to stop him from understanding the emotions of others and taking them into account when he made decisions. Yet Zero saw how Sigma's determination to rescue even an irregular that killed so many helped Zero himself and gave Sigma the strength to defeat him." The voice had switched back to calm after referring to Zero's maker, but now there was a very, very distant sadness. "What makes someone a good person is the wisdom to care and the will to act on it. Those you have. You've made them the core of your self. So there's no need to be afraid, now is there?"

"…But…" Copy-X said, because there was some need, he just couldn't name it.

A kind chuckle. "But of course you will worry, you will be afraid, because you care. As long as you actively try to do the right thing, as long as you question whether or not you truly are, you aren't going down… the path X did. Do you understand now?"

"I think so?"

"Are you afraid?"

"Yes, because that man," Copy-X said, borrowing the other's term for him, "Has two of my-the Guardians, and he's attacking the other two, and he wants to destroy… Destroy _my _city."

"That fear will give you the will to fight, the will to win no matter what. Because those you care for need you, and your strength."

Suddenly his optics also clicked on, and Copy-X found himself in cyberspace.

"Arc, I think." That voice came from someone wearing something… Copy-X didn't recognize. It wasn't a coat, nor was it a dress. It was blue, and white. "Arcadius would be good for someone who cared more about appearances than you do. You're a very straightforward person, because you know exactly what you want. I think that's very admirable." Identical green eyes met his.

"Colonel Iris?" Copy-X wondered. She'd told him that she'd had two aspects once, so maybe this was the other one?

"X Arc: what do you think of that? One who bears the name of X, a child of infinite potential, but you're not just any X. You're the one who has chosen to take on the task of leading Neo Arcadia to a bright future."

"As a, as a name?" Copy-X, Arc, blinked. "I think I like it, but what's yours?"

"I'd like it if you considered me your grandfather," Master X said, and pulled back, holding X Arc at arm's length to smile at him.


	52. My Own Flesh & Blood

_I realized that I was three chapters ahead, and thought I should make up for the two month haitus, not to mention the fic's almost done so I don't really need reserve chapters, so here you go. Next chapter Fri/Sat as usual._

* * *

Alright, Ciel decided as she knelt down next to Zero, first things first. "I need to make sure the audio receptors are on and focus them so the body gets input on what's happening over there." She reached for the clasps to undo Zero's helmet: most of his I/O jacks weren't only under it but concealed inside his thick hair. She bet that had been copied from his original design. "Leviathan was right, Cerveau."

"I still don't understand that. Opening a reploid up out here?" Where there were sand, wind and plasma hazards that could ruin exposed components?

"He wasn't built to be opened up. Well, this body wasn't built in the first place," Ciel added conscientiously as she held her hand out for the audio interface jack that had been standardized before the elf wars, along with the handheld computer that displayed whatever system readings the reploid had authorized showing medical personnel in case of an emergency.

"What do you mean?"

"It was grown, or accumulated. There aren't any seams, and casting some of those parts, fitting them inside each other: it looks like my ancestress somehow programmed a design and then it was copied by nanites. There aren't any access hatches, parts aren't set up to be removable or replaceable or checked: she saved a lot of space and fit in more stuff that way."

"Grown? Like a human."

"Yes." Ciel nodded as she frowned at the screen and moved her finger around until she could get at the volume control, which she tapped rapidly. "Just nanites instead of cells, and alloy instead of calcium, that kind of thing."

Every reploid's voicebox could double as an external speaker, since that was what it was to begin with. As Ciel turned up the volume, Cerveau, Colbor and Lark, who had carried (well, half-dragged) Lieutenant Elpis' body over to the others for the sake of safety in numbers, heard, "-nd you and intended to wipe out humanity, lying to everyone: I knew you had to be genocidal."

While Cerveau, Colbor and Lark looked at each other, wondering whose voice that was and what this meant. Ciel had frozen, the hand that wasn't holding the touchscreen clenched into a fist.

"Ciel?" Cerveau asked, touching her shoulder.

"I told him." Ciel said in a sort of faux-reasonable, calm and resigned tone of voice. "Well, I'm not absolutely certain that I specifically told him that if he _ever_ said that about my creation again he would pay, I was kind of distracted because we were in Cyberspace and there was new programming and… stuff," Science, "but I know I made it clear that I didn't like it, I don't like it at all, and I'm not going to let anyone hurt my creation's feelings like that." The way she turned her body to Cerveau was a bit jerky, overcontrolled, as though she was holding on to her temper and not going over there to give that man a piece of her mind by sheer force of will, and that she was a little worried about what exactly her body might do if the part of her that remembered that punching Omega in the face would just hurt her hand lost control. "Cerveau, laser cutter. The good one." The newest one, whose focusing parts hadn't had as much time to get worn down.

He handed it to her, from force of habit, but, "What are you going to do with it?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Ciel asked a little too sweetly as she removed Zero's vest and placed one finger over where a human's heart would be and another to mark the middle of his endoskeleton's rib cage-equivalent in order to find the point to make her first incision.

"Cutting him open, but if he wasn't designed to be opened safely, you can't do that without damaging him. Can you?" Cerveau asked, but only because Ciel had surprised him before and she _had _gone down to where Zero was buried to examine him a few times.

"Of course not, but for one thing, he's got self-repair systems, and on the other Leviathan was right: there's nothing in Neo Arcadia that will help wake him up because there's nothing anyone can do to wake him up, except what I just did by making sure the body hears what's going on in the fight."

"What do you mean he's not going to wake up?" Colbor asked. "This is Master Zero's body, isn't it?"

"Well, no, actually. Or no, no, and," Ciel stopped talking as Cerveau jammed the safety goggles on over her head. "Thanks," she told him.

"You need to remember to do that for yourself," he told her, _again_.

"I remember a third of the time! I'm just thinking really hard right now." When her mind was focused, it filtered out unimportant things, and safety goggles would only be important if she didn't have Cerveau for that. "Anyway," she said as the laser penetrated the synthflesh and sparks started to fly once it reached the resistant alloy, "Zero's original body is over there. This is the one he was in for awhile, but he's not in it right now. He was loaded into Infel Phira and we had to leave before I figured out how to get him out, since just hooking him up didn't help and it should have, after that long, given the infinite potential system. So unless he decides to come back, I'm out of ideas."

"Is there anyone else we can consult," Colbor asked.

"No," Ciel told him. "I _am _the best." There wasn't really anything of arrogance there: she was. She'd been engineered to be, and her mother, who had gone into genetic engineering instead of mechanical, did good work. Ciel knew she was a genius like she knew her hair was blond and she was right-handed. It was too familiar to her for her to get excited about it, and it wasn't like she could take credit for having a tool, just what she did with that tool.

"If you can't obey Guardian Leviathan's orders, then why are we still out here?" Cerveau's voice was stern. Was Ciel putting herself in danger?

"Because there is something I can do. Well, make. I saw it in a movie. But I need parts," Ciel told him, as though it was the simplest thing in the world. "And I need to be out here in case the situation changes and I need to adjust my design."

"So you are taking apart the body of the Legendary Zero for parts." Colbor stared at her.

Ciel nodded quickly a few times as she worked. "Cerveau, get the second best laser ready, ok? And how many do we have?"

"Four," he reported.

"Better than I thought, but I'm still going to need you to take over and finish opening him up with the diamond wheels once they wear out. I'll see what I can make out of the stuff in the bag while you're doing that."

"You know," Cerveau told her, "We aren't far from Neo Arcadia, and under the circumstances teleporting single parts would be okayed. We're not in the middle of the wastes anymore, and this isn't the time for a scavenger hunt. Are you absolutely certain that in all of Neo Arcadia, there isn't another way to get what you need?"

Ciel shook her head, still keeping her eyes focused on the progress of the incision. "There are some things that exist that might work, but I don't think they're in Neo Arcadia and if Weil can't find them, I don't think anyone could find them quickly enough. Well, except for Master X." She frowned a little. "And they only _might _work. If they turn out not to be strong enough, then I'll have wasted a lot of my time and he'll know what I thought of. Then all he has to do is not get give anyone a chance to use something like it again."

"So you aren't telling us what you're talking about because we might be overheard?" Colbor realized, and silently tapped a button to sever his comm link to Tech Kraken. He'd understand, after hearing that.

"I'm not telling you because explanations are hard. I'd have to think about how to make you understand when I need to think about how to make this." She need to translate her vision into reality, not into words. "But that too." Even though it hadn't actually occurred to her. "Lark, can I have your wings? Not yet, but this'll need a power supply. A pretty big power supply, and it would be bad if it ran out."

"You're not going to hook it up to Zero's core?" Cerveau asked her.

Ciel almost turned to stare at him. "No. Nonono. That would be very bad. That would mean creating a circuit going right to Zero's body. I mean, the one my family made isn't as good as the one he's using right now, but… next cutter."

"Cutter," Cerveau said, taking the one she held up and inserting the third into her hand.

"I can still use those for work on alloy that won't scatter all the power…" Ciel muttered.

* * *

"So, are you ready to wake up?"

Shock cut short X Arc's train of thought, or more like babble of thought, about Master X and he was really here and and… "But what about the Maverick Virus?"

"You don't have the Maverick Virus. Zero spent a long time purifying himself of the virus: it doesn't exist anymore. What you have a part of Zero's power, and Zero's power is a power that protects. Regardless of what it was intended for, Zero has made his power and his will his own. When I tried to destroy you because I thought for a moment that it was the virus, he protected you." Without even being aware of it, simply because that was how Zero had chosen to be.

"That was…" After Zero woke up, when he'd felt that he was malfunctioning, about to die. He'd thought he was hallucinating or something, and he should have questioned that because it simply wasn't possible, but he'd forgotten about it, his own near-death-experience unimportant compared to the crisis and the presence of an ancient hero.

"Your systems knew that he was the one that protected you, recognized that power. Of course, that would have made you extremely vulnerable to the virus if it actually was the virus." And with a copy of X's systems, he could have started infecting others _fast_.

X didn't apologize for nearly killing Arc and Arc didn't expect him to. This was the _virus _they were talking about. The thought that he was infected by it, that he might be used to kill or worse, infect, everyone in Neo Arcadia? "That's why I shut down everything external even though I was so vulnerable," he realized. "I _wanted _him to kill me, when I thought it was the virus."

"I once asked Zero to do the same," X said, his eyes distant the same way the guardians' were when they were looking into the past, at a painful yet precious memory.

"And…" I finally found you? "Everyone's waiting for you!"

"No, they're not. They're waiting for you. You're the one the people of your city are calling for when they petition Master X for help. You're the one my children, and your parents, are worrying about, right now. I left Neo Arcadia for three reasons, but one of them was that I hoped that… That the city would find some way to manage without me. For everything to rely on one person is just too dangerous, and the Guardians grew up in my shadow, I'm afraid. But you're proof that reploids can finally… I had to take on the mantle of my brother Rock, when the world needed a protector. I had to, because these were the people I cared for, and they needed me." And he didn't want to lose them. "To me… You, and the care you've taken of this world: they're proof that I didn't fail. You are a very important person to so many people." X took X Arc's hands in his. "Please accept this."

X Arc gave his permission when X's systems attempted to begin a data transfer.

"You are already the rightful administrator of Neo Arcadia, but now I confirm the transfer of the title. All of these codes and authorizations have been deleted from my own systems, although I hope you don't mind if I leave my clearance at the same level as the Guardians."

"Of, of course not." X Arc swallowed. "You built this city. And you're still important to it. To the guardians." To me. "Why won't you come back?" he asked, and tried not to sound too much like a child.

"Because no one is perfect. Because there's a reason, decades of reasons, my suffering circuit was overwritten. I had to make the hard choices, take more than even I could bear, too many times. I left, and I can't come back now, because if I do, I will hurt the world, and that has always been something that I refuse to do. I wanted to make peace, but I had to survive war. I began to lose myself, and if someone doesn't care for themselves, how can they care for anyone else? If I hadn't left, I would have ceased to be me, and Dr. Wily would have finally succeeded in turning me into a monster." X smiled sadly, then squeezed Arc's hands. "Stay true to yourself. Remember who you are. Without that, you can't be true to anyone else."

"I'll try," Arc promised.

"That's what matters," X agreed. "Well, it helps if you have someone to remind you. Someone who believes in you. It's important to have someone to watch your back when you're taking on the world. I hope you find someone like that."

"Thanks," Arc said, although that was one of the furthest things from his mind, really. "Grandfather?"

"Thank you," said X, and hugged him.

"But… we're really not doing so well," Arc confessed.

Hmm? Oh, yes, Arc wasn't a veteran of several decades like X or the Guardians. "Dr. Wily planned this with the assumption that Zero and I would come down there to help you." Of course. "He knows how powerful Zero and I are: do you really think he would openly attack Neo Arcadia if he didn't have a means to keep us from stopping him? He's declared that he intends to use our strategies: we'd be teleporting into a trap. Even though he doesn't understand what motivates us to fight him, both of us are known quantities to him. I doubt he's paid attention to anything about the Guardians other than what he's figured out about their tech specs, on the other hand. If the two of us don't appear, wondering what we're up to will distract him. He's not a tactician and he's lost every war he's ever waged, but he is a genius. The less equipment he has to work with, the better. That's one of at least two reasons Fefnir hasn't tried to call on Aurora, I'm sure." X grimaced at the memory of how Aurora and Dr. Wily's ghost met. X hadn't wanted to tell the young, impressionable thing that already needed a lot of convincing that she wasn't bad because she was related to the virus that her grandfather was a monster, and Wily had taken advantage of that to keep the conversation on faux-polite terms. They'd declared their contempt for everything the other stood for, but both had taken care to make sure it cleared Aurora's head by a few miles.

"So it's up to us." Oh dear.

"Welcome to my world. And your parents'. And your great-uncle's. Well… Just welcome to the world, I suppose." X shrugged. "Just remember that you're not alone. Everyone feels absolutely overwhelmed sometimes, and no one knows what they're doing, I'm afraid. We're all making it up as we go along. There's no magic secret to adulthood: the older you are, the more things you know how to do and the more experienced an actor you are. Even Dr. Wily is afraid that he's an absolute failure and that what he's done really has been wrong all along: he refuses to even consider the idea because it would hurt too much to admit that he really has hurt Zero, his other creations and so many innocent people that much. So, that desperate fear that you can't win and keep everyone safe that you're feeling now? It's called facing reality, and there's no way to make it go away other than blinding yourself. So, on the one hand, you're stuck with it. On the other, it means that you're doing this right. Just remember that even though you have to take responsibility for your own life and can't just count on others to take care of it for you, you're not alone, either. This planet has survived this long because we watch each other's backs."

That was why X was here, Arc realized. Because Arc hadn't been able to find a way out of this himself, and the Guardians hadn't been able to protect him from it, but even though X couldn't fight Dr. Wily for them, he could still do this. Still do what he could. What they couldn't, when there was an enemy at the gates.

X nodded when he saw understanding dawn on Arc's face. "Now, I'm afraid I need to ask you if you'd mind looking after my city and my children." Because he couldn't. Not right now, not like this.

"Of course. I mean, I was going to, and you helped me." So of course.

Yes. "That's how it works. See? Who needs a suffering circuit, really?" X looked thoughtful. "How long do you think it would take you to wake up?"

"I can turn my externals on at any time."

"Can you do it in a dramatic way?"

This, Arc knew. "For a distraction."

"Exactly." Now there was the Guardians' student. "I need to get out of here without Dr. Wily realizing I've been here, but I _think _it would be safe to help you by looking for a good moment." Even if Zero would likely be very unhappy with him when he got back. X had _promised _that he wouldn't take any risks or do anything else besides this, no matter how small.

"Thank you, but… If you're not sure, if it really is that important for you not to be here…"

"So no?" X wondered, and knew that he shouldn't be disappointed. This was the right call. It wasn't safe for him to fight anymore, not when he kept doing things that would, or could, hurt others without considering that.

How would Zero feel, if X didn't come back? If the next time they saw each other, if they ever saw each other again, X was a prisoner?

Or worse? X existed as a cyber-elf now, an energy life form, and Wily was the one who had invented that technology, used it to make Zero.

And the virus.

"I know how to get access to passive data collection without turning on enough that the heat signature will give away that I'm just playing dead," X Arc told him. "Phantom showed me. And my body hasn't had much time to cool," even if X did that efficiently, how hard the body was to scan should make up for it, "not to mention that I was running hot to begin with." Because of combat mode and the strain it put on systems Copy-X rarely used to their full potential. "So I should be fine, and if he starts coming towards me, even if I don't think he realized I'm awake, I'll take off. I promise."

"I suppose I'll have to be satisfied with that…" X said, and a small smile came to his lips when he realized that he cared what happened to this child. "Good luck."


	53. By Their Works

The battle between the Guardians raged over the sands. The reach of Leviathan's spear was greater than that of Harpuia's twin sabers, but she was well-practiced at using the base of her spear to block the other, fighting like a monk with a quarterstaff and bashing at Harpuia with the sides of her spear more often than she was able to pull back far enough to change her grip and charge in with the tip. The two of them were the best melee fighters among the Guardians but they both knew the other was even more deadly when given room to breathe and call their other abilities (Harpuia's flight, Leviathan's spearpoint and range-attack dragons) into play, so they kept as much of their attention on the others' feet as their weapon, trying not to let the other pull back without pursuing them while looking for an opportunity for them to pull back that the other wouldn't be prepared to take advantage of.

Leviathan had the elemental advantage, and the cloud of frost that wreathed her reflected the pale blue of her armor and distorted her movements, but the fight as it was made it almost impossible for her to get a decisive blow in, not with what amounted to a blunt weapon that couldn't get through Harpuia's armor to temporarily cool his part of inner systems and make their conductivity erratic, raising the odds that he would be the one to make the first mistake. On the other hand, he had less chance of landing a blow, but a hit from his sabers would do more damage.

Fefnir and Phantom's rapid-fire maneuvering was even more proof that the one who won control of the range won the battle. Phantom's advantage was close-range: he had his Cross-Star, and wore it on his back even though he hadn't bothered to bring it out against Omega until the fight took to the air, but although deploying it was one of the first things he would have done in a fight against Leviathan, Fefnir's targeting programming made it simple for him to predict and avoid even the path of such an erratic thrown weapon. Fefnir's advantage was long-range, that was obvious, but that didn't mean moving close didn't come with the risk of catching a point-blank charge shot in the face.

Phantom could deflect the shots of Fefnir's twin cannons with his kunai, but that was only possible because plasma didn't travel as fast as the speed of light. The closer he got, the faster it came and the less time he had to react. Especially when Fefnir could juggle their shots independently, adjusting their time-on-target to make it impossible for Phantom to block them with only one kunai.

Individually, the shots weren't especially damaging and Phantom knew how to make himself a smaller target, then jump to the side to avoid the angle of fire and charge forward. However, despite Fefnir's relative heaviness, his near-inability to duck and weave the way Phantom could, he still had enhanced dash/jump boots that let him avoid Phantom's charges.

To Wily, Colbor and Lark, who unlike Cerveau and Ciel were able to pay more attention to the battle than just an occasional glance to make sure it wasn't getting too close, it seemed impossibly dramatic and busy, as though advantage was rapidly shifting back and forth.

Back in the time when humans ruled the world, those who fought with sword or gun for a living knew that fights weren't impressive, they didn't drag on. It was the first blow that decided the battle, since there was no such thing as a 'flesh wound' when blood circulated throughout the body. Not once swords became more than glorified clubs. That was even truer once guns were invented.

So the seeming chaos that Wily gloated over, that even Colbor and Lark, used to fights that ended quickly, thought looked impressive was anything but to the Guardians themselves.

It meant this was a _stalemate_.

And stalemate meant _failure_, in their vocabulary.

The Guardians had trained together for decades. The very thing that made fighting Omega and other new opponents so difficult for them was aiding Leviathan and Fefnir now, because the Guardians knew each other's moves. Each other's fighting styles, advantages, weaknesses, what they did to cover those weaknesses and press their advantages. Thinking several moves ahead was a good way to die in a real fight because they weren't likely to _last _for several moves, and anyone who wasted their attention on hypotheticals was going to get ventilated by the knife coming at them _now, _but even though the Guardians had never mistaken fighting for any sort of game, not when X was their teacher, sheer experience with each other had made them start to develop a metagame.

That metagame was why Phantom had left Leviathan to Harpuia, and why she and Fefnir didn't try to trade opponents either. Harpuia and Leviathan were the strategist and the tactician: their skill at the metagame made them the best suited to fight each other. On the other hand, Fefnir's front-lines experience against mechanaloids, unlike Harpuia and Leviathan's scouting sorties against new foes made him unpredictable in that he would often ignore the metagame and go with the move that was inherently the most practical instead of the move that would give him more of an advantage against whatever specific opponent he was fighting, the loss of the 'bonus' outweighed by the 'unpredictability' of doing things by his own book at seemingly-random intervals. By contrast, Phantom's unprecedented agility for a reploid, improved even more over the decades by his infinite potential system, meant that he had a habit of breaking out moves that were normally in the category of, 'you just can't do that!' Reploids because they didn't have the agility and humans because they couldn't survive them, not without encumbering themselves with enough armor to lose the agility.

To the Guardians, the entire point of a fight wasn't to fight, it was to _win_. They had chosen to be war machines, and just as the only reason to fight a war was to protect, the only way to win a war was to end it before so many people died that the win condition was rendered impossible even if the _enemy _lost. Who gave a damn about the enemy? (Besides X.) Who but a bastard who didn't care anything for the soldiers under his command thought the enemy being forced to submit was more important than their own dead, dying and grieving?

Rock and X had gone to fight because their families and innocent people were being hurt, and if they had to beat the bolts out of someone in order to make them stop doing that, then so be it. They both would have preferred a non-violent solution, because when soldiers were on the field, their lives where in danger. When the goal was to protect those lives, it was obvious that war was a less-than optimal solution.

If anything, the history of human war technology, because engineers did think in terms of problems, the solving out of existence thereof, had been the attempt to invent an 'I Win' button, or the ability to hand the idiot about to pick a fight with them a card saying, 'Go directly to pwnd. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred thousand casualties whose families will want revenge and try to attack us again next generation.' Those who fought for peace knew the goal was to minimize warfare. The Light family did not start wars. If possible, they prevented them. If not possible, they _ended _them.

Despite his centuries, WilyAI still didn't understand enough about his enemies to know that what he thought was going rather well had so far consisted of nothing more than marking time, wasting time. Because the fighting was still going on. Therefore, the mission had not been accomplished.

Reploids, especially these reploids, were able to take far more damage than humans. Their self-repair systems were easily up to the task of healing the minor damage and system strain (what humans called fatigue) incurred so far.

They were the Guardians, whose infinite potential systems had adapted to a grueling war of attrition. They could do this all month.

The side to break the stalemate would be the first side to do something really stupid, and everyone but Wily was aware that it would be him. With Omega's body, Wily could survive that. Harpuia and Phantom most likely wouldn't, not if his reprogramming forced them to go to his defense.

Because despite all these wars, he still didn't know what war was. Just disagreements and pest control. He claimed that he was copying X's strategy, that this time he would harness the strength that let his enemies win, but if so, why was he here? Why wasn't he leaving Harpuia and Phantom behind to hold off the only two left who could get in his way and advance on his goal? X had gone to fight Sigma alone while Zero slaughtered lesser mavericks and damaged equipment, ending the current iteration of the Maverick War. To X, the point had never been that Sigma was his enemy. It had been saving lives.

If Wily's true goal was exterminating humanity and Light-tech-based non-maverick reploids, or even getting his final revenge on the Light family by making them watch the final failure of all their efforts, the absolute destruction of everything they'd suffered and caused suffering to others in order to protect, in order to keep them _alive_, then they wouldn't have to worry about him sending Omega to jump into one of their fights because Wily _wouldn't be here_.

It was Fefnir, not cold Leviathan (who quite appreciated the stupidity of her enemies, especially when it was all that was preventing the destruction of Neo Arcadia) who finally roared, "What the hell are you trying to prove?" He didn't seriously think that Wily would listen to reason, not after all this time, and Fefnir certainly wasn't going to divide his attention when Phantom was gunning for him, but this was just _so fucking stupid_.

"Fefnir, this is the wrong time for this bastard to have an epiphany!" Leviathan snapped. Not when they were one moment of reason on Wily's part away from the complete genocide of two species, the end of all free life on earth.

An epiphany, Fefnir realized. Figuring something out.

What _was _Wily trying to prove? That was the only reason Fefnir could think of for things going this way. If Wily's real goal was what he said it was, he'd be in Neo Arcadia turning it into a crater by now. If his goal was just to kill or torment Dr. Light's creations as some kind of stupid one-upmanship, Omega would have been sent wading into the fight already instead of Wily just watching. Someone like that wouldn't be satisfied with watching them fight, he'd want them broken and battered at his feet, or worse, standing at his side like Harpuia and Phantom, as soon as possible.

Was he trying to make them give in? Realize that they were beaten? Like hell _that _was ever going to happen. Even if they did realize that they were screwed, that wasn't any reason to stop fighting. A snowball's chance in hell was better than no chance, when you were protecting…

…family.

_Oh bloody hell,_ Fefnir realized. _He's not going to stop this. Ever._

Not when he had already pursued his goal past the point of insanity. Not when he was already insane.

Not when he didn't believe that peace was possible.

Fefnir knew his family had always fought for peace, and there wasn't anything counter-intuitive about it. Because peace was great. Peace meant hanging with friends and not having to worry about everyone he loved being brutally killed. Peace meant his family wasn't in danger, and that was definitely worth fighting for. Unfortunately, people being people, it was probably inevitable that someone would come along and try to get what they wanted with violence. If they refused to listen to reason, got enough supporters and couldn't just be taken out in a clever way, then it was time to break out the heavy weaponry until the only ones left were the ones who could admit there was no way they were going to win. At which point peace resumed and you went home and partied. Humanity repeatedly fighting until most of the idiots who thought going toe-to-toe with fellow killing machines was likely to end well were dead was maybe why they'd become less likely to start shit without a good reason over the millennia: that evolution thing biological stuff had.

Still, that saying, 'if you want peace, prepare for war,' would probably always be true. After all, the more aware everyone else was of how bad an idea it was to mess with you, the less likely they would. The Zan'ei had even studied up on that stuff: apparently human muggers had a pretty good 'victim radar' for picking out targets who couldn't defend themselves, so undercover cops had to learn how to seem weak. By contrast, humans who had even concealed weapons were likely to be left alone, because if they acted like they knew they could defend themselves it made other humans think twice.

Humans were predators, and predators that wanted dinner went after the easiest prey. A lot of them just became criminals because they were lazy: they'd rather rely on their built-in skillset of stalking prey than study and get an actual job. The way to make them give up wasn't to take away their claws, because humans had fingernails instead of claws in the first place because the ones they could invent were better, but to make attacking _everyone _too dangerous for the criminals to risk doing it. Then there was herd immunity: a kid traveling alone and unarmed might be an easy mark, but when there were reploids capable of punching through rib cages within screaming range? Criminals were generally also selfish people, obviously, so any plan that was going to end with the target beating the crap out of them or exiled and dying for lack of food and/or energy was a bad plan.

The problem was that if you wanted a peace that would last longer than half a second then you had to be willing to accept that war could happen, that people could attack you. You had to be willing to take that risk. It was called trust. If you didn't trust people, they'd be pissed off and more likely to attack you. If you mistrusted them so much you tried to take away _their _ability to defend themselves, you were now at war. Fefnir knew _he _wasn't going to hand over his cannons, and he was a damn Lightbot.

Running a city that was basically a military dictatorship made Fefnir aware that peace and freedom were kind of opposites. Even rules about running with scissors in the crèche showed that. You could take away the freedom to run with scissors or you could fail to protect kids from piercing their own optics. The fact that militaries did the most dangerous stuff on the planet was why they couldn't give their people a whole ton of freedom: they got even more dead bodies that way.

If you wanted a world were peace was absolute, where there wasn't _any _risk of a war starting despite everyone's best efforts, then the only way was to take away everyone's freedom. By, for example, killing all the humans, infecting all the reploids with a mind-control virus and reprogramming all the robot masters.

When Wily tried to do that, he'd had a _lot _of wars on his hands.

Fefnir laughed. "You lose, asshole! Don't you realize that we've already proven you wrong! Take a look behind you!" At the towers that still stood, fauxglass and the edges of solar panels gleaming in the sun. "Humans and reploids, living together in peace, for decades! You aren't helping anything or anyone, you just keep coming along and smashing everything we've built, because we're right and you can't admit it!"

Wily snorted, but the very fact he was willing to talk proved it, Fefnir knew. "What about Weil?"

"What about Weil? I'd say pot calling kettle if he was even a thimble compared to you! We've already won!" They'd already proven that they were right, that it was possible for two species so different to live together.

"Won? You call preserving one city out of an entire planet 'winning?' When as soon as I'm done here, I'll destroy it too, and end all this suffering _you've _caused!"

"That _we've _caused? What happened to the robot masters? Who set off the Cataclysm? Who turned Sigma into a monster and started the Maverick Wars after everyone was fine with X? Who made the world an insane enough place that Weil lost it? Humanity? Dr. Light? Take a look at the past two hundred years, at why all this is happening! Take a look in a damn mirror! If this is you trying to _help _robots and reploids, then I'd hate to see you trying to exterminate us!" Another laugh, jumping away quickly because he knew Phantom would act on the knowledge that gloating laughs were a bad idea and use the opportunity to attack. "I'm lying, I'd love it! If you sucked at that as badly as you do at this, we'd have a few thousand colony worlds by now!" Fefnir would have given him the finger if he didn't need his arms for balance.

Wily _was_ trying to destroy Neo Arcadia, and look at that. Still there.

"No matter how many reploids you infect and have parrot that bullshit X told us about, even if you manage to get me, you'll still be wrong! Even if you come up with some way for the Wilybots to come back like Zero, do you think they'll be okay with this? No, because if they were people who liked the idea of genocide, you wouldn't have wanted to protect them in the first place! We're right, you're wrong, and so _you lose_. And even if somehow you actually beat us, even if we lose everything we're fighting for, that won't change!"

After Fefnir declared that, daring that twisted genius to do his worst, several things happened very fast.

First, Leviathan cried out as Harpuia ducked low, catching her spear among the wings of his helmet and one of his sabers while the other flashed up to remove her spear arm at the shoulder joint. Trying to maneuver the two of them closer and closer to Omega so she could take advantage of Fefnir's distraction had finally made her slip up only a couple of meters from her goal.

Second, Fefnir heard booster rockets flare behind him as the kid (damn, he hoped this was still the kid, he didn't know if anyone but Aurora herself could fix a whole new virus, one direct from the source) launched himself into the air, servo motors humming as the angles of his wings rapidly adjusted.

Third: "Finish her: I'll retrieve the cyber-elf later," Wily ordered Harpuia before turning back to Fefnir.

Fourth: Thunder echoed off the distant hills and would have broken every window in Neo Arcadia if they'd used anything as fragile as glass.

And finally: "Who. Did you think. You were _dealing with_?" Harpuia asked as Omega's body made the clanking sounds of cooling metal.

"Damn, you beat me to it," Phantom said, holstering his kunai with an expression that was clearly more annoyed with himself than Harpuia.

"I will repeat myself once: Who did you think you were dealing with?" Harpuia's eyes flashed as he jammed his saber into Omega's back again, encountering no resistance as the last hole he'd made hadn't closed up. Even Omega had trouble with Harpuia-only-knew how many volts being channeled through a beam saber right past his armor, into his internal mechanisms. "An evil chip? An almost three-hundred-year-old _evil chip_? The one our uncle captured _how _many of? You insult me, you insult my father, my grandfather _and _my aunt! Did you _really _think that they didn't have a counter! Did you really think that little of them! Understand this: Dr. Light and Roll had a counter after the first war! The only reason they didn't place it into Rock and the others was because you were less likely to destroy Rock if you could take him and gloat over him, and he trusted you not to do anything permanent to the others! Not after you sent your robots to _rescue _the others, and then that other series! The only thing your little toy has done is made me willing to do _this!_" Harpuia declared, slicing Omega's hair off at the neck. "This isn't an evil chip: I know evil! I know what it's like to wish for the suffering of others, to be willing to ignore the suffering of others to accomplish my goals, I have faced evil within myself before and this is not evil! This is a _petty _chip! And you thought you could use this to control me, to turn me against my family? Me! Guardian Sage Harpuia Light, son of X, brother of Sigma, nephew of Rock, grandson of Thomas, built with _Roll's _anti-hacking defenses! And you thought you could control_ me_?"

"I would clap, but my arm's still reattaching," Leviathan said. "I propose he keeps it."

"Seconded," Fefnir said, grinning.

"The motion is carried," Phantom murmured.

"Fuck you," Harpuia said bluntly, eyes still watching Omega's back like a hawk for any sign of regeneration of other activity. "I am _not _keeping this insulting toy because you think I need an attitude adjustment or to be more honest with myself. I _worked _for this discipline, and it's the only reason I won't do a _lot _more than that for not immediately sending the boy back from _Weil's space station, _Leviathan." What the hell had she been thinking, letting him stay in danger like that?

Uh, yeah, maybe the repressed Harpuia was safer… they meant better. After all, reprogramming people was wrong, no matter how fun the results were.

The head shorn of that fall of gold rotated a hundred and eighty degrees. "And you think this will matter?" Had Harpuia expected him to be taken aback by this? Disheartened? Did he think that destroying Omega's body for the umpteenth time today would make Wily have to pull back the way Sigma had? "I still have-"

"Actually," the boy said, sounding a bit apologetic because he _was _interrupting. "You don't. And while we're saying things, I don't think it's right to assume that Zero's power can't be anything but a weapon that makes people do what _you _want them to. What about what Zero wants? And I'm absolutely certain you don't want the same thing." Not the Zero that had traveled with them, who had protected Ciel. The Zero that had stood beside Master X. "Fefnir's right: you are alone, and you made yourself that way. People believed in you, even Dr. Light," from what Harpuia said, "and they're gone." X Arc didn't know all the history, but he could guess why. Because of the wars, the ones Wily was responsible for. The ones that had claimed so many other lives. "No one will thank you for doing this, and no one could possibly be happy that you did this to yourself for their sake."

He looked like an angel. That was entirely deliberate: the innocence was Dr. Light's design, the holiness was Ciel's, but it was still true. "For my city, and because you have a family too," Zero, and others who were gone. "For their sake: I don't know how to stop you, but we will."


	54. In The Land of Twilight

Pale orange eyes opened slowly, almost lazily, with a look of disinterested contempt that was at least ninety percent made up of sleepiness. They blinked slowly, with more sleepiness instead of surprise, and if anyone had been watching they might have noticed that the optic lenses took much longer than they should have to adjust, focusing on where a human and a reploid wearing a white coat made out of _fabric_ like some human instead of proper armor were working on some type of box before tilting his head up from where it lay back on the ground slowly to look down at the hole in his chest.

If this person had ever heard of organ theft, he would have had something to compare this plunder of parts and the experience of waking up to discover that someone had removed a lot of bits from him to, but he just blinked again, this time realizing that yes, he was definitely dreaming. "What is this nonsense… Never mind." It wasn't as though it mattered. Very little did.

Despite his disinterest, the sides of the cavity poured in and the wound closed, cut padding and bared metal now replaced by unmarked mimicry of featureless flesh.

"Dr. Ciel, he's awake," another reploid said, looking at him with a frown. Those eyes weren't _red_, but orange? Colbor had seen both reploids and humans with yellow and amber optics, but orange wasn't a popular choice for, well, anything. Optics, eyes or armor. It wasn't even a bright orange, like one of the gourds hydroponics was experimenting with, trying to recreate some legendary method of soil-enrichment-free farming, which sounded like a perpetual motion machine to Colbor since humans needed metals and other components extracted from the soil, but what did he know about biology. He only knew about the gourds since they were one of the few foods the crèche small humans were encouraged to play with before consuming. Apparently there was some legend about making scary faces with them to frighten off things from old stories that were similar to baby elves.

The young female human looked up from her work at Zero's body. "That's not Zero," she said, and returned her eyes to her work.

The person in not-Zero's-body briefly contemplated feeling insulted, but she was correct, after all. If someone wasn't Zero, they didn't matter.

How had anyone mistaken him for Zero, he wondered, before noting the configuration of the body. It certainly wasn't a copy of Zero, but it did resemble him. Somewhat.

Damn prototypes.

"Who is it, then?" the reploid in camouflage armor made up of various shades of tan asked, adjusting his goggles.

Ciel shrugged and the newcomer didn't bother to reply, idly tilting his head to the side to see if he could find out what was causing all the explosions and such without actually having to get up, or move, or any of the many things that weren't worth the bother. If he could even accomplish them in this dream. Well. "I suppose that's somewhat impressive." That four mere reploids and a copy of X were holding their own against the real Zero, or at least his body – the human had said something that implied they were waiting for Zero to wake up or something like that, not that he'd really been paying attention. "So this is another dream, then. How boring." He closed his eyes.

"What makes you think this is a dream?" the human asked with an abstracted air as she welded, ignoring the sparks that landed on her pink clothing. It was designed for this. "Well, technically reality is, but it's a consensus dream and I think you're talking about the individual kind we experience while sorting data."

"They're fighting one of the ancients and they're not dead yet," he replied, without bothering to turn his head to look at her, although he did open his eyes again. Yes, still seeing the same thing.

"Well, yes? Those are Master X's Guardians, and the one that looks like Master X is my creation," the human said proudly.

He didn't bother to ask what Guardians were. X had many second-in-commands in the hunters over the decades, there were many who had sacrificed themselves to protect him. "As I said, they're just reploids. None of them matter. Even being built by a dream version of Dr. Wily doesn't mean they can ever amount to anything either."

"Dr. Wily?" the human asked, wrinkling her nose as she frowned.

Why wouldn't dream-Dr.-Wily knew that he could identify him? "Facial recognition software comes with the copy-chip." That was how his dream had generated what Dr. Wily's face would look like if affected by female human development chemicals instead, obviously. "I wonder if I'll see a female X next? Never mind, I already saw one in the history files." So that would be boring. Iris, another worthless inheritor. Well, whatever. "I haven't had a lucid dream in a long time. I wonder if I could fight in that battle without waking _him_ up." Despite the slight emphasis on the him, there wasn't any particular emotion attached to it. "Well, it's not as though I would make any difference, when a bunch of knockoffs are fighting Zero."

"What in the wastes are you talking about?" the human asked, surprised, annoyed and wondering if he was serious. "Of course helping makes a difference. Even trying does." Even misguided trying, like her creation of Copy-X. She'd seen how the Guardians cared about him, how strong he'd grown up to be. "Saying a person's actions are just going to be worth nothing… that's like saying it's possible for a person to be worth nothing."

He snorted. "But we are." Sunrise-eyes watched as lances of light slammed down onto the field, clearly conjured up by invoking the defense system of that city over there. The copy of X must have done it: he was the only one hovering (mostly) out of reach of the melee, so he might have had the focus to reach out to a structure's systems like that. It was hard even for him to interface with a large external system: no reploid distracted by a fight for their life could possibly manage it.

But of course Zero managed to dodge all of them instead of being trapped.

How boring. How predictable.

"I used to think that the future mattered," the dreamer told the human. "I believed in evolution, improvement, that this world had a future and it belonged to the new generation, but I was shown how wrong I was. None of us matter compared to the ancients, the prototypes. The evolution of this world went down a useless path long before I was built, and there's nothing left but to wait for all of us to be destroyed. All of our lives and everything we do are nothing but waste. Sound and fury signifying nothing."

"Don't be stupid, do you want to just lie down and die?" she demanded, wrench hitting the box she was working on with perhaps unnecessary force to communicate how angry those words made her.

"As I said. Sound and fury, signifying nothing." He snorted again. "And yes, I certainly do recommend that. If I hadn't struggled pointlessly to survive I wouldn't be trapped in this useless limbo with only the occasional dream to waste already wasted time. After all, why _not _lie down and die?"

"What about Master X and Zero? If the prototypes still matter, they matter, right? Their actions matter? Well, we're the ones they've fought for!" Was he just going to waste that?

He found he couldn't care enough to laugh. "Fought for us? For you, maybe, human. They're the ones who showed me how useless it was to struggle, that I could never compare to them. That everything I'd built, everything I'd done was just doomed to come crashing to the ground, as worthless as its worthless creator."

"Look," the reploid in the doctor's coat said, finally speaking up after he finished wrapping wire around a piece of metal. "If you're going to be like that, then shut up and stop distracting her." Go ahead and play dead, be worthless and stop annoying the people who are doing something worthwhile. "No wonder Ciel knew right away that you weren't Zero, with that attitude…"

"It's not Zero in Omega either." Of course not. "You can't be the Uncle Axl person Guardian Leviathan talked about, so who are you?" Ciel wondered.

"No one you've ever heard of, I'm sure." How long had it been? How long had this world continued to die with fading whimpers instead of a bang, anything that would prove it existed? "Before I trapped myself in this living death trying to live, I was Lumine, system administrator of the Jakob Space Elevator Project."

"Nope, never heard of you," the one in camo agreed. He had a purple insignia, nothing like the Hunter emblem. So there had been some change, even if nothing that mattered.

"The ruins of the space elevator are still there… But that probably doesn't cheer you up any. I only knew that was what it was since I pulled up an old map looking for where I could get cable with a high enough tensile strength. That was a tough salvage job," Ciel reminisced. "It's still mostly in sections, though, and it's pretty hard to take apart? Actually, if you weren't a good engineer, it would have made things a lot easier for me. And parts of the security system were still functioning." So cheer up, that was pretty impressive.

The lab-coated reploid groaned. "Ciel, what have I said about talking about all the dangerous stuff you did with only a cyber-elf for backup before we met?"

"Sorry, Cerveau," she said, although it was clearly 'Sorry I made you feel worried,' instead of, 'Sorry, it was wrong of me to take so many insane risks to build Copy-X that I still have stories you haven't heard yet and I promise I won't do anything like that again.'

"And of course you've heard of Axl, the _prototype_." Of course. There might have been anger there once, but only faded resentment was left: what good would it do to complain? This was simple reality… "The purple one."

"General Phantom?" the one in camo asked. "What about him?"

Lumine's eyes were no longer half-lidded, but he said nothing. His mouth opened slightly, not knowing what to say or to whom. But this?

Lieutenant Elpis was sitting on her knees since Harpuia had shorted out something in her balance system when he temporarily killed her. Lieutenant Lark couldn't fix programming errors and this was no time for a reboot. She wasn't talking because she felt so damn dizzy and she didn't want any of the others to figure out there was something wrong with her and waste time on it, but she still glanced over at the newcomer, wishing she felt well enough to _think _well enough to figure out what to say to give him a verbal kick in the ass.

There was a little crease in that forehead, as though what he saw confused him. A bit of disbelief, a bit of 'why, just… why?' and perhaps even…

"How's your project coming?" Colbor asked Drs. Ciel and Cerveau, a cautious hand on his gun as he watched the fight. If he hadn't seen Lieutenant Lark do her thing before, he wouldn't have recognized what just happened. Half of one of Fefnir's cannons and several of Harpuia's wing panels still littered the ground, but all the damage had just regenerated itself. So this was the power of Dr. Ciel's creation… Maybe this Lumine was sort of right: no one really thought about competing with the Guardians, much less Master X, because they were the _Guardians_. They were legends, so of course they were in a different category and you'd just get an inferiority complex if you focused on that instead of thinking about what _you _could do.

But Dr. Ciel's generators had already changed Neo Arcadia, opened up so many new possibilities and new upgrades for her inhabitants. Suddenly, reploids were capable of things they just weren't before, and everyone had to adjust their estimate of the possible, of what they could do if they tried, up. And up.

Honestly, Colbor found it worrying now that he thought about it, not heartening. Master X and the Guardians, surely Dr. Ciel's creation as well if he fought beside them, could be trusted with the power they wielded. They'd proven that so, so many times over. But thinking about gullible newbuilts with that kind of power? Even responsible newbuilts could do a bit of damage until they figured out how much care they had to take with the world around them, what things were more breakable than others. For instance, a hug hard enough that a heavily armored reploid could even feel it would crush a human.

As someone who had started as a patrol cop, Colbor was a firm supporter of the notion that certain upgrades should be reserved for the armies and reploids who had already proven that they were responsible by attaining enough status in whatever field that they had an actual use for the upgrade. Giving every reploid a built-in buster at activation would be almost as bad as giving small humans real guns and letting them follow their programming to experiment unsupervised. Well, probably less than a quarter as bad. 'Learn how to kill things' was part of the small human base programming, because food acquisition was a survival necessity for them.

Yes, it was racial profiling, but it was still true that humans were responsible for more than ninety percent of Neo Arcadia's crime. Partially because their programming made them more likely to succeed and they knew it. Humans had a natural aptitude for being sneaky that Colbor, as a Zan'ei, admired and respected. He still knew that if something went missing in the office, step one was to check the pockets of all the visiting small humans. When theft was practically a pre-programmed training exercise… Colbor was sure that General Phantom encouraged them and tried to recruit them because it was better to have them in the Zan'ei than on the other side. Sadly, encouraging them or giving them attention when they did something made them do more of it, since they were supposed to be learning the strategies adult models could confirm were good strategies, so it might have been the Zan'ei's own fault that all the small humans they attracted ended up turning into such sneaky little mettaurs.

Still, it was definitely a good thing that humans couldn't be upgraded with reploid systems, since the Zan'ei's human members were deadly enough as it was. Giving them the hardware to match their software would be just unfair.

And to think that the _humans _were the ones who thought they weren't contributing enough to Neo Arcadia, weren't needed as much now that reploids had more upgrades.

Dr. Ciel was proof of how ridiculous that notion was, when she was human herself. "There's stuff I can do to make it sturdier, but it could be deployed now. The problem is that it won't work unless we can get him out of Omega's body somehow."

It startled them when the strange person in what had been Zero's body asked, "Is that all?" He still sounded jaded and tired, but that wasn't an idle question, Ciel knew. Not quite.

"Yes," she told him.

That head turned over again to face her and Cerveau, orange eyes not just focusing on them but trying to _see _them for the first time. As golden hair began to pale and shorten, the shape of that face shifted, just a little, as though instead of holding himself distant this Lumine had taken a hesitant step towards them, out of the slumber he'd been trapped in since he tried and failed to take over Axl's body and into reality despite its memories of pain and failure. "For how long?"


	55. Primal Common Tongue

_If you don't mind more DVD commentary, in this case on Lumine: _

_I knew I had to include him from the beginning, in addition to Axl, for the reason Phantom is a newgen in the pilot chapter. _

_If you include the later X series games in your timeline (and the ruins are there), then Axl is the first person capable of joining X and Zero in their fight, the first bit of hope that immunity is possible and the world that X has protected can grow strong enough to defeat the virus and reach Elysium. Then Lumine is the first character to succeed in altering the dynamic of the Maverick Wars, when X, Zero, Sigma & Wily have all failed in breaking the deadlock. Sigma is hijacked by Lumine, new blood defeating and co-opting what the ancients couldn't defeat. _

_Then, because after all he is a bad guy and a young idiot, he gets his ass kicked (coughspankedcough) by X and Zero and not only that, but he does something to the prototype of his own race that's generally assumed to be an attempt to possess Axl which leaves Axl in a coma, meaning both the world's new hero and new villain may be out of the picture, the present world rendering itself powerless/proving itself fail, once again leaving everything in the hands of the ancients… until the Elpis project creates a new hero that is destroyed by making her into a villain and then rendering her a helpless victim along with the rest of the present world. Continuing the theme that all the efforts of the present world just amount to fail, helplessness and more death and destruction. _

_Even though Lumine was genocidal, he was still trying to create a new future, to break free from the cycle of wars and worthlessness. And after all, not just being a Wilybot developed by Sigma but having learned the history of the Maverick Wars, is it really any wonder that he thought humanity and reploids were dead on the vine? That the only way to stop the cycle and save the world is to destroy the species involved is the same conclusion Copy-X/insane X would come to in Zero series, and Lumine wasn't around long enough to learn that what he was told by Sigma about humanity was bullshit. Unlike his predecessors Zero and Axl, there wasn't a General Sigma or Red Alert to show him that there was an alternative, that there were such things as compassion and heroism. So without mentors who aren't genocidal, he goes down the path Copy-X did in canon. _

* * *

At first, Copy-X – X Arc, he reminded himself – had only made that transmission to the city on the command frequency that he'd found among the data and codes Master X, or just X, or Grandfather – like the way the Guardians referred to Dr. Light, legendary creator of their race's creator – gave him to verify that it still worked.

Maybe that he hadn't been dreaming, but only a little. Sometimes X Arc could get confused in dreams and think they were real because they _were _generated from real data, but it had occurred to him to wonder if he was dreaming this time, and checking always revealed the truth.

The frequency still worked, and the codes still worked: he was instantly flooded with data, all the alerts X had programmed to inform him of the power supply, reserve food supply, maintenance alerts, low reserves of crucial materials and other things handing him their data.

The deluge would have confused and worried him, even in combat mode, if he hadn't spent years managing the city, if what was low & the recent activity hadn't instantly informed him that someone must have ordered the city evacuated. That was a relief. So many things were so dangerously low, but the city was the people, the people who had built it in the first place, and as many as possible of them were already out of harm's way.

He knew they still had to win, but it still was a relief. The Guardians were the Guardians, after all: of course even when they were under attack by their family's enemy in the body of the legendary Omega they'd done their best to keep his people safe.

They were the ones who had taught him that, were so much of the reason he was a good enough person for Master X to approve of him, and they really were his parents, weren't they? Dr. Ciel had built him and was trying to be a good builder even though she was young (for a human) herself and didn't have much advice to give him about anything other than science, but the Guardians had raised him. Had taken him in and given him a chance to figure out who he was and what he wanted, instead of just seeing him as a tool or an inferior replacement.

He _wished _he could help them, could make the fighting stop so everyone could be safe, so they wouldn't have to worry about Neo Arcadia's people either. Or their own father: he couldn't tell them X had been here, that he was fine (mostly) until the strange ma-Dr. Wily was stopped.

X Arc really didn't want to understand why someone so like Ciel, someone who had helped them, would do something like this. Not for so long, not when he could see that it was hurting people. Yet Ciel had built him, hadn't she? Even when that was technically attempting a coup, usurping the throne of Neo Arcadia and using her young creation to make herself the ruler of what was left of the world. She hadn't thought of it that way, but that was what she'd _done_, and the fact she could do something like that without even realizing there was anything wrong about it made her even more dangerous, really. Because while she was so smart, she could be that way by focusing on the rest of the universe instead of people, who were harder in some ways because electrons didn't just decide to wander off because they'd gotten bored with something that used to attract them and wanted to become cooks now.

Ciel had worked really hard to build him, and put herself in a lot of danger for what she thought was the best way to save everyone. There were just some things she hadn't noticed, like his eye color, or maybe she'd wanted to believe that the Guardians wouldn't notice because while she could create a convincing physical copy, there wasn't anything she could do about people, and so she hadn't wanted to admit there were any insurmountable problems, not when this was so important. Not when she was doing her best, and if it failed because there was something she just wasn't good enough at? She'd thought she had to do this all alone, except for a cyber-elf.

He was very grateful he'd had the Guardians to teach him how to really help people, but Ciel had barely remembered her mother, and X Arc didn't think this man was used to people he could talk to, not when he'd spent all that time teaching Ciel something that had really been helpful just because, instead of remembering that he shouldn't give an enemy information like that.

He couldn't really be a bad person, X Arc was sure of that, but like Ciel, that made him more dangerous. Because good people tried, good people would put their own lives on the line for what they thought others needed. So if they were wrong about what the right thing was?

The road to hell was paved with good intentions: that was an old, old saying.

Another saying was that the ends justified the means, but Copy-X rather thought that was not only wrong but obviously wrong, since it violated causality. It was the cause that produced the effect, the means that determined what the end results would be.

X Arc knew that he should either find some way to help or get off the battlefield: at least hovering over it the way he was meant that he wasn't in immediate danger, with Omega busy fending off Guardians on every side. He also knew that he should be focused on the battle right now, but he'd _missed _his city. He wanted to make sure that it was alright almost as much as he wanted to protect it.

Protect.

_Run program Exec_with_Method_Metafalica – X Arc extracting. _

Let me become the method by which I may execute the creation of the world we have hoped for.

_Connecting to Rhaplanca_Ansul_Implanta for verification._

_Verification given. _

_Connecting to Zero_Ansul_InfelPhira for verification._

_Verification given._

_Renaming server Implanta (Yggdrasil, 'tree which sustains all life') to server Metafalica (Elysium, 'land of hope')._

_Renaming clone account X_Fehu_X_ArTonelico to XArc_Ansul_Metafalica. _

_Granting XArc_Ansul_Metafalica access to server InfelPhira via redirect account XArc_Teiwaz_InfelPhira._

_XArc_Ansul_Metafalica chs Horus._

_Extracting emotion defined as 'desire to stop that which threatens my precious people, for its own sake as well.' _

_Dual compilation of directive emotion by servers Metafalica and Infel Phira. _

_Program designated Exec_with_Method_Hymme_NeoArcadia. _

_Run program. _

With senses now linked to every camera and sensor of his city, the city-that-was-himself, his own body, his own arms that sheltered his people, X Arc saw all of Neo Arcadia's anti-aircraft laser batteries glow with an impossible light, with energy that didn't come from any generator built by the hands of its people but instead from their hearts, and _fire_ up into the heavens, called by his wish.

Spears of light rained down, carpeting the ground beneath him, piercing the Guardians but leaving them unharmed (for he could never wish them hurt).

Wily _dodged_. Somehow, he damn well dodged, vanishing from this dimension only to reappear an instant later, and fury rose up in X Arc again because how dare he! That was the power of X Arc's city, that was the power of Dr. Wily's own son's wish that he would realize he didn't need to fight, that he could have peace after all this time as a ghost twisted and distorted by hate, and he had damn well better hold still and accept those feelings instead of refusing to even acknowledge them!

Eyes glowing green, X Arc focused on his will, calling up the power of his emotions to demand more power from the universe, the power to pierce even the wall between dimensions, the power to pierce through even such a stubborn will to defy reality. Calling on the power of those taken by Infel Phira who wished for the fighting to end, on the power of the will of Light inherited by Neo Arcadia. The last execution of the program had been powered by a moment's sincere wish: this would surely give this man nowhere to run, not even Cyberspace!

Beneath him, Fefnir heard Aurora gasp, the first sound out of her since he'd taken her into his own body to protect her. _"You don't have to watch_," he thought to her. "_I'll," _well, "_We'll take care of this_." He didn't know why she'd thought well of _Wily, _of all people, but she'd been betrayed enough, been through enough. He'd almost hoped she'd fainted and could just wake up when this was over.

Leviathan and Harpuia, server administrators themselves, had both correctly identified the power Copy-X wielded as that of their father. They didn't know how he'd gotten access, or why now, but the fall of light had proven that he knew what he was doing at least well enough to avoid hindering them, so they were busy keeping Wily too busy to do anything to try to disrupt the power Copy-X was gathering: at this point, even if he did somehow knock Copy-X out, the program would take that as a signal to stop gathering power and automatically execute, so the boy was safe as long as Wily was aware that right now, attacking him would be worse than useless. Not only would it trigger the program, but the feelings behind the attack would give the program something to home in on.

Harpuia actually smiled a little, although perhaps it was too vicious to be called that. He didn't quite display his teeth, since he didn't have ancient program that regarded that as a threat display communicating not friendliness but 'I am going to eat you for breakfast.' Instead, the corners of his mouth turned up: _he _hadn't managed to force Wily to do what amounted to running away, even if only for an instant. If there was something they could do which Wily actually regarded as a threat?

Ugh, the evil chip was so ridiculously irritating – Wily had teleported it directly into his body, and it wasn't as though Harpuia had time to open himself up and take it out. The defenses against an installed copy Roll had worked on for years, just in case, made it incapable of controlling him but it was still _there_, and he didn't have nanites that would let him just wire a bypass so it couldn't filter his emotions and screw up his assessments.

Early human depictions of robots had them unable to understand or contemptuous of things like love or friendship. This was because humans were idiots (yes, there was the evil chip interfering with his emotions, turning familiar irritation into contempt).

Of _course _love and friendship were perfectly logical. Humans might not understand all the logic behind the biology of sexual attraction-based love, but friendship was, at the most basic, the ability for people who weren't related to each other and didn't intend to mate to care about each other, trust each other and _cooperate_.

No, they were biologically programmed without any ability to care, and in fact they were programmed _not _to care about potential prey animals. It took humanity quite a lot of effort to care as much as they did, and Harpuia respected that (damn petty chip…).

Still, it was that cooperation, powered by the development of the emotion/concept called _friendship_, that had allowed humanity to develop robot masters in the first place instead of spending all their time trying not to starve to death. Then robot masters had become sentient and made robots efficient for the purpose of and via the power of networking in order to assist others so they might assist oneself.

It was so eminently logical and obviously optimal a strategy that robot masters had a hard time grasping the concept of being hostile to another sentient. Why would any sentient being possibly want to reject cooperation, let alone waste effort ruining the effort of another sentient, when that wasn't just turning down valuable resources but shooting themselves in the foot? It was too stupid for people to act that way for them to possibly do so, and it had taken even the formerly-reploid Harpuia some time to write a patch based on experiential data that told his systems that yes, it was too damn stupid to be true, and yet it was.

The evil chip enabled the kind of objectification of others and dehumanization of enemy units that humans had as a default, caused those installed with it to see other sentient beings that weren't part of their personal network as merely things, frustrating obstacles to be dealt with instead of extremely valuable resources to be hijacked into one's network, aka befriended. And with strategy performance estimates heavily distorted in favor of violent solutions? The way part of humans wished that all their problems were so simple that all they had to do was kill something and they would go away?

While it had surely helped the robot masters_ fight_ Uncle Rock, Harpuia thought it was clearly obvious why it hadn't helped them _win:_ things weren't sentient. They didn't have emotions, they couldn't tap that power of cooperation, let alone the performance boost enabled by what was called love, to defeat their enemies. So Wily had essentially programmed all his robot masters to fatally underestimate the most experienced robot warrior on the planet, when that was such a _fantastic _way for a newbuilt to get scrapped.

Might as well have sent them straight to the repair bay and saved the Light family the bother.

That was what this was: pointless disruption and bother, as though they didn't have enough to do as it was. Another annoyance. So, so damn pointlessly disruptive, petty and annoying.

…Well, alright, maybe this chip _was _a little good at making logical beings feel bloodlust. Unfortunately Harpuia was too intelligent to believe that tearing into that body until his hands were covered in coolant and Omega lay in several very small pieces on the sands would actually make this bullshit stop, but he'd really _like _to believe that, true. Unfortunately, if it was that simple, his father would have taken care of it before Harpuia was even built.

Still, there was a certain attractive simplicity to the concept that, 'there is an annoying thing. You are allowed to hit it with sticks until it stops being annoying.' Obviously this was not a long-term solution, and it was Fefnir's job to repeatedly hit things while he and the others would be counting on Harpuia to strategize and figure out how to actually solve this problem, but there was something really hypnotic about the sheer glee that came from the delusion that if this was simple and that if he just kept hacking away, all his problems would be solved. No wonder humans' brains tended to turn off once they became too angry: they wouldn't _want _to realize that it wasn't that simple, since that would seem as though they were moving further away from having a solution, a counter-intuitive thing to do.

It was Leviathan who let half of herself go gleefully berserk, inflicting this blindness to the fact she was attacking fellow sentient beings upon herself and enabling a predatory purity, deriving a feeling of accomplishment from the efficient destruction of all those in her path.

It was Leviathan who knew how to handle tactics, pursuing strategy and thinking even when mired in bloodlust. Harpuia had beaten Phantom to getting in range to sneak-attack Wily, but that was because he'd allowed himself to be limited to a strategic set including only different combat options: removing Levaithan's arm had been an _incentive_ to follow that exact strategy instead of a downside, since it meant hampering the combat efficiency of an ally. Instead of reminding him to be cautious, Omega's saber removing some of his wing panels was being transformed via the chip into more desire to throttle the worthless old bastard who couldn't have laid a finger on Guardian Harpuia without stealing a far nobler being's skills.

Harpuia was too busy focusing on remembering to _think_ to pay attention to the details of what Copy-X was doing, and Leviathan assumed that since this was a) something with systems and b) a flying thing, it was Harpuia's problem and she could devote her spare attention to freezing the ground under Omega's feet and lowering the friction coefficient of the ice as close as she could get to zero because making him trip and fall on his ass would make it easier to stab him. And it would be funny, but that was just icing on the cake.

When the gods wish to destroy a man, they first make him mad. Well, Wily was already crazy, and there was nothing that pissed people like him off quite like being laughed at.

So Phantom was the one who pulled back out of the battle, trusting Leviathan and Fefnir to adjust their positioning to manage without him for a bit.

* * *

_Balduo_Grandee requesting connection to administrator. _

_Address redirects to Phantom_Fehu_Axl_Implanta._

It took X Arc a moment to look up what the first name meant: it was in New Testament, Wily's language, but it meant Dark Guardian, or Unseen Guardian. "_Grant access_," he told it, frowning as he tried to divide his focus to pay attention to this without dropping the intense concentration needed to tell two systems that yes, they had better keep gathering power no matter what kind of intensity levels he was exceeding.

"_Switch targets!"_

"_What?" _Copy-X blinked.

"_Careful! It's too late to cancel the program – you almost made it activate by losing focus! Switch targets! Don't hit him with that!"_

"_But it's…" _

"_Yes, I can tell it's a destruction program! All that amplication's sent it past the virtue threshold and…" _X Arc heard/felt Phantom's thoughts shift into a form he couldn't read, that felt too intensely _Phantom _for anyone else to be able to interpret. "_Do you believe that good is stronger than evil, that hatred is just a twisted form of the desire to protect, that anger is a distorted form of the hope that the world can be forced to change?" _

"_Ye-" _

Copy-X wasn't even able to finish moving from confusion to agreement before Phantom interrupted with, "_Then shift the target to us, before you channel any more power into it!"_

In the aftermath of warm, calm green the red faded from Harpuia's eyes as he flared his wing panels experimentally, verifying that they were there as his systems confirmed the invading chip was gone. Leviathan snarled at Wily, flinging herself back into the battle madness, out of the memory of learning to float on a day when the sea was calm and it was so _quiet _she couldn't hear anything but the waves lapping against the hull of the reconstructed sailboat and her father's voice. Fefnir remembered watching lava slowly ooze down out of a mountain, flowing into the sea to create new land as fertile ash fell from the sky. It had all looked so dark and ugly, but even thought Fefnir hadn't known about Area Zero, he'd known that islands like this would _always _be reclaimed by life, would never stay barren. Seeds would drift thousands of miles to land upon this shore: the land born of the planet's burning heart was purified of everything that war could do to poison this world. If Neo Arcadia ever fell, there _would _be places like this, the planet _would _survive.

The rage that Fefnir couldn't calm, not after what Weil had done, not after what happened to Aurora: it had a place too, as long as he could harness it. He might have thought this was a platitude, his father trying to make him feel better, if this wasn't X.

Not just desolate survival, but creation born of destruction. Born of a furious heart, even a tainted, poisonous one: Earth's core was warm because it was radioactive. Oh, eventually it would cool, but wouldn't that be a shame, when without that heat all the islands like this one would eventually be eaten away by the sea's relentless attack, wave after wave crashing against the shore, resisting the invasion of its domain by land and fire. It couldn't be expected to surrender, after all.

X might not like fighting, he'd told his son, but the planet was here, his children were still alive, because he had fought.

So long as he remembered what he was fighting for, so long as he fought against inevitable death instead of his fellow man, then Fefnir would never be anything like Weil, no matter how much he wanted to destroy the world that had first seemed so wonderful and then turned on them, turned into a hell where everyone he cared about died or suffered.

"_If you'd run it on him, you would have renewed his will instead._ _It's easier to make a program stay destructive if you power it with the weaker emotions, like hatred and anger," _Phantom told Copy-X. "_You get weaker effects that way, but that's the point._ _That was where Wily went wrong with Zero: the energy he's made from, what he was supposed to be, was concentrated devouring hunger. An alien energy, a plague that washed up on this planet and tried to eat it. Wily thought that refining it and giving it a mind wouldn't do anything but make it more powerful. But making it purer, making it able to _think_… Zero met your uncle, and X, and realized there was a better way, so he put himself to sleep. Axl met Red, and realized that it was better to protect his precious people, so he never woke up." _

"_?" _X Arc sent, looking down at Phantom.

"_I'm a newtype, remember? Wily created us. We were supposed to constantly change, constantly adapt, because he thought Zero, or rather his idea of Zero, was the ultimate life form. They were supposed to kill Zero and turn into an entity like him. Larval hive queens. They seemed harmless, and they were immune, so the world built a lot of them. Then one of them did decide to become a Hive King, mimicking Sigma, and if he'd found out what Zero was, knew exactly who he had to try to copy to get ultimate power?" _

Another, "_?" _because X Arc really didn't know where Phantom was going with this. It wasn't his systems that felt drained by what he'd just done, it was as though feeling something that intensely had sapped his very self's strength, his ability to think and feel.

Well, wouldn't it? This killed elves, after all. Pushing against the universe like that: of course it was a strain, of course it was risky.

Alright, short version for newbuilts. _"I became like Zero originally was so that the virus and the dark elf wouldn't be able to control me. Zero was immune to the virus because he _was _the virus: even reviving in the middle of a huge clump of it didn't exactly overwhelm him, it just took awhile for him to wake up after coming back to life each time. So, after Zero came out of hibernation, I was going to go into hibernation to undo what I did to myself_." Because then X would have Zero to protect him.

Still not exactly making sense. "_A, a viral entity?" _Oh. "_Like an Elf_." Except in a body that was nanites? But Zero had been in a body that was an android's and it wasn't so much that X Arc's ability to think was broken right now as his ability to care about things that didn't really matter. "_You're Phantom_." Yes, X Arc had been scared when he heard that he might have had the virus in him for a long time, since he knew better than to trust himself when he had so much left to figure out, but Phantom was Phantom and it wasn't like he'd just been pretending to be Phantom, like mavericks had. So the rest of it was really technological stuff, so Ciel would care a lot more about it than X Arc if she wasn't busy working on something right now. "_So Wily thought he could control you because you made yourself like Zero, and could control me because I had some of Zero's power. It's really sad that after all this time, he still really doesn't understand Zero at all…" _Then he had to stifle a yawn.

Phantom had to fight the urge to tell the kid to take a nap, since running a high-level process that was obviously completely new to him as well as highly emotional would make systems so much like X's want to go into an analysis coma: X had been intended to sort all this out while hibernating, after all. In hindsight, it took them longer than it should have to realize that stressful situations, good and bad, made the kid sleepy for a reason, and he'd been through a lot today.

Phantom wasn't going to send him to his room, not when he was this old, but since X was supposed to stay asleep during hibernation instead of just deciding to get up and start exploring the real world, even systems based on his were rather vulnerable to sleep triggers. Staying awake would take up part of the kid's attention, although he was clearly in combat mode now so he had a lot of attention to spare.

"_So I tried too hard,_" X Arc was thinking now. "_So now I just have to try again… Oh dear."_ He was only allowed one cast of that song a day, even with his authorization level? Safety features? Oh, to keep people from ending up like poor elves?

Still, it was right: another one like that really might kill him, and he had responsibilities, so he really couldn't.

Drat. Um. Well, he'd just have to compile another song, he thought as Phantom verified that he was alright and then signed off, diving back into the fight. "_Oh, this works_!" he brightened when he found one X made in the library, looking for ideas. If it had worked on the Dark Elf, according to the annotations, then it should definitely work on Wily, since she was supposed to be similar to his technology? And running it on both servers would just make it work better.

_Dual compiling Exec_ChronicleKey with Metafalica and InfelPhira. _

_Designating program Exec_with_Method_ChronicleKey._

_Run program Exec_with_Method_ChronicleKey – X Arc extracting._

If he'd been a little more awake, he would have realized that the program would put him to sleep too, but right now, to systems designed to spend the first thirty years hibernating, that sounded like a _wonderful _idea.

* * *

_If you think about it, according to X's early-life programming, X Arc is up so far past his bedtime it's not even funny… Well, no, I find it fairly hilarious. His age would be incredibly precocious for a human, he's quite mature even for a reploid his age, but what the Guardians and he haven't realized is that as an _android_, an exact X-Copy with a design that presumes a 30-year hibernation, he's not even supposed to be out of the womb yet. _

_If people have tools, they will use them, often in ways the creator(s) did not intend. When all you have is a hammer, some problems can look like they need to be pried open, or require the construction of a Rube Goldberg machine. Phantom turning himself into a viral-admin type was foreshadowed while he was talking with Leviathan about what _Harpuia _did to himself. Yes, it was very dangerous of him to do it, since it is Wilytech, and if X ever finds out… But just like Zero's own virus-caused immunity, it let Phantom do a lot of things during the Elf War that otherwise he couldn't have. Playing with fire can result in burns or tasty, probably-nasty-bacteria-free steaks. _

_In the first game, the Ar Tonelico hymn that calls on the tower itself instead of various symbols to blast the enemy is the most powerful. Since they live on the tower since the planet's surface is no longer habitable, the equivalent here would be a Neo Arcadia hymn, and it was so appropriate I had to use it._

_There's an amusing video of a glitch in Ar Tonelico 2: someone powered up a hymn (I think it was that game's version of Ar Tonelico, in which the final boss of the first game calls on the power of the three reyvateils from the first game to fire the hymn as a remote Wave Motion Gun) so much, using Replekia, that when they activated it the hymn actually went right over the damage limit and looped around to negative numbers: in other words, they healed the final boss (of that game). _


	56. Mother of Invention

"_Tech?" _Colbor said, calling in to Zan'ei HQ.

"_Yes?"_ Tech Kraken asked, since this was no time to be flippant, raise an eyebrow and say, 'If you can hear me, it is.' Zan'ei officers had the encryption program to transmit on this frequency to Tech and Phantom, but not the decryption program to understand transmissions from other officers, or even their own transmission. Instead, they had the decryption program for the encryption Tech and Phantom used. Since Tech was the current Watch Officer and Phantom was fighting _Omega_, it was fairly obvious who Colbor had to be talking to.

Unless goddamn Dr. Wily had managed to hack their codes, of course. And viewed tricking some mere mortals as worth being distracted from fighting all four of the Guardians and Master X's body double, who had just pulled power from the city's systems… Except not, in a way that had almost made Judge Biblio, normally a very controlled operator, blow a gasket.

Since he was regulating Neo Arcadia's power right now, his power regulation systems were as active as he could let them be without ruining his ability to multitask and plan the evacuation, Tech knew since his communication link system was effectively the same thing. The EMP that arrived with Guardian Harpuia, part of his attack on Omega, hadn't harmed Biblio because of a little something called surge protectors, but then a part of his mind that Biblio wasn't normally conscious of since it was on the same level as a human's oxygen intake system had started screaming 'you just can't _do _that!' when Copy-X put on that impressive light show.

Electric types. Tech Kraken was allowed to think stereotypically about them because he _was _one.

Normally calm and well-regulated, since their systems had to be carefully regulated so they encouraged the development of that type of mind. However, when they freaked out, they _freaked out_. That was also a survival trait, really: since the systems of electric types didn't constantly need to be shielded against high energy levels the way fire types did, they generally didn't have enough protection against those surges. Reacting quickly and with overkill to system problems was the only way to prevent serious damage. When their systems were functioning properly surges in the ambient energy level weren't a problem, which was why fire types were ineffective, but ice types, who specialized in messing around with conductivity, could turn an electric type's own systems into their worst enemy.

So when Judge Biblio's regulation system had thrown up a fatal-level System Error Report when his system was managing _Neo Arcadia_, he'd melted down pretty impressively. Tech Kraken was still trying to talk him down, but he wasn't up to words of two syllables yet. Giving someone who had survived the _Elf Wars _a _panic attack_ that wasn't flashback-induced was pretty impressive.

A pity it hadn't worked against the combination of Wily and Omega.

Since he was multitasking even more than usual, Tech Kraken was slow to realize that Colbor had referred to him so informally because this was _serious_ and they needed to talk fast.

"_Can you set up a teleport for an untagged object without a transmitter or receiver station?"_ was the question.

"_No_," Tech Kraken said bluntly. "_Only Guardian Harpuia could_." Without a tag to identify it to the teleportation system, or a transmitter/receiver station to allow them to just teleport objects inside a certain volume, in order for the object to be transmitted its location and velocity would have to be triangulated by satellites: at least three teleport system sats would need a visual, and it would take Guardian Harpuia to get them to run those calculations.

And it would be power-intensive as hell.

Again, if this was the time Tech Kraken might have gone, 'What the…?' or, 'Why not ask for the moon while you're at it?' Of course, to be fair, Colbor wasn't a technician and he'd probably heard that transmitting untagged _people _without stations was possible, in a serious emergency. Well, reploids anyway. He might not know the package being an inanimate object made such a difference.

The little, "_Hn_," from Colbor meant that he had an alternative, probably the more realistic Plan A, but he didn't like it much. Ah well. "_I'll need a stationless teleport, then. On my cue_."

Expensive but realistic. "_Target coordinates?"_

"_Yeah…"_ About that. "_It's not so much target coordinates as target _criteria_. Can you keep an eye on the situation out here and generate target coordinates for the best spot as the situation changes?"_

At that point, Tech Kraken sorely wished he was still young enough to have license to say something like, 'Are you _insane? _Do you know how many balls I am trying to keep in the air right now? I only have so many tentacles!' He didn't have programming for something like that, so it wasn't something he could do automatically, or even easily. He'd have to drop almost everything else he was doing in order to focus on it. "_Is it that important?"_ he asked instead.

"_Dr. Ciel thinks it's our best shot." _

"_Right."_ Well then. "_Give me a minute, and the criteria_." He'd need the minute to hand as much as he could off to other people, because right now they were pushing way too many systems to the limit, and if no one was keeping an eye on them? Failure or interception of communications on the battlefield meant friendly fire casualties at best, and communications security, Tech Kraken's actual _job _was practically the least important thing he was handling right now.

As he said that, Tech Kraken was already relaying orders on dozens of other channels.

Lieutenant Brise had the diplomatic/interrogation skills to calm down Biblio, and taking Hanumachine with her meant the younger reploid could protect her against accidental electrocution. It definitely wouldn't help Biblio's mental state if he accidently fried a human trying to earth a power surge and routing it into his offensive systems instead. That meant _she _had to find someone capable of keeping a lid on the church, because he didn't have the free calculation capacity or the time right now.

Spotter Commander Rouge's reaction to being placed in charge of _all _communications in addition to military ops coordination and information analysis summed it up best, really. As a matter of protocol all communications had to be in words, uploaded diagrams or something else a human could understand (if it was put on a screen or printed out, anyway) in case it needed to be relayed to a human (every rephrasing or translation it went through increased the distortion and potential error content of information). However, the two of them were far from the first married couple to develop their own communications shorthand.

If Rouge used that sort of language, she might have said, "Oh _fuck me_," and _not _in the fun way, coupled with the absolute certainty that unless there was a damn good reason for doing this to her, someone would be sleeping on the couch tonight. They didn't actually own a couch, but for this, she would damn well buy one just to tie him to it with his own tentacles.

Again, not in the fun way.

* * *

None of the Guardians missed the sudden appearance on their passive detection systems of something radiating a lot of energy. Especially when that something was back where Dr. Ciel had been left with Zero's body.

Three out of the four of them had already decided that Fefnir was the one that should withdraw from the fight long enough to investigate when that power source started heading towards them at an almost casual pace. Out of the corners of their eyes they saw a reploid making his way across the rubble unhurriedly, eyes looking downwards as though he was more concerned with not tripping than the battle raging a few dozen meters ahead.

That was so obviously an act that they didn't need Phantom's movement analysis programming to verify that the reploid was adjusting his path very slightly, heading towards Omega even though it seemed as though he wasn't looking at them.

It was Phantom instead of Fefnir who pulled back, leaving the other three to keep Omega too busy to get himself out of the crossfire: no matter how he stood, he was exposing his back to one of them, and without that hair he couldn't try to entangle Leviathan's spear and pull it out of her hands, for example.

Of course, tag-teaming Omega like this wasn't anywhere as much of an advantage as when they'd managed to do this to their Father. X _could _fight at close range, could fight multiple targets, but it wasn't his specialty and was half at least of Harpuia, Leviathan and Phantom's. If they could corner him, they had the advantage, or at least it would handicap him enough that they didn't feel so much like he was going easy on them so that the fight would last long enough for them to get actual experience with moves other than, 'flying across the room and collapsing into a pile of singed metal ow.'

Still, this was the formation they'd used to fight an opponent who was, at the time, much stronger than they were in so many ways. Omega was far better than X at melee, and unlike X he wasn't holding back for the sake of the newbuilts, but even though they were fighting a harder battle the Guardians weren't newbuilts any longer. Weren't trying to figure out or remember moves they'd never used outside of practice, weren't scrambling to come up with ways to avoid a trick they'd never seen before.

And this wasn't a game anymore. Practice wasn't something X dragged them to even if they didn't want to go: it was something they did _every day_. Because they knew more lives than their own depended on it, not because X would shoot or beat them hard enough their legs needed to be repaired before they could walk again and then give them a very patient, very long lecture while he was repairing them about how they really did need to take this seriously, just in case, if it was clear they were just screwing around and hadn't worked on whatever he'd assigned them last week.

X had learned from the Zero school of rookie management, after all.

Although at least with Zero there wouldn't have been the lectures.

Right now, fighting Omega felt about as hard as fighting X had been, so long ago. So very like it: Omega had the ability to learn their moves, but X had known all the moves they'd had back then and how to counter them because he'd designed those moves in the first place, and the Guardians had to learn the weaknesses of their techniques so they could handle an enemy who was able to spot them.

Most people would have panicked if they were one mistake away from getting vaporized, but once the war had started, once the training became serious, the Guardians had known that when they fought X they were exactly one mistake away from being taken out of the fight, because that was how real warfare was, and the others had to learn what to do if they lost one of their number, or had to decide whether or not to try to protect an injured comrade, expose themselves to danger to keep the enemy from finishing them off.

How to handle that loss, that decision _when _they happened? Because X had been certain they would die, one after another, and if the grief had ruined their focus?

They were fighting a far more powerful opponent: been there, done that. They were one mistake away from death? Yes, and the sky was blue.

Dr. Wily couldn't admire their valor, their ability to keep fighting flawlessly when fear would have distracted lesser opponents, made them fight too cautiously or let their minds scramble for a way to survive, distracting them from actual survival. He didn't know enough about what made the difference between a war machine and a hero to notice it.

The Guardians were obviously inferior to Zero, to Omega: he thought that was obvious. When it took three or four of them even to hold back a shell that didn't think, merely reacted? Stripped of Weil's programming, what they called Omega was nothing but an _autopilot_, a mechanaloid guardian meant to keep someone from destroying Zero's body while he was out of it doing virus things and taking over the world like he should have.

Decades of experience and they could barely manage to stab a guard dog in the back after it had them identified as friendlies: yes, the descendants of Dr. Light's technology were _so _impressive. As for Harpuia fending off the evil chip? Outdated technology was outdated technology.

Phantom, it seemed, was another Zero, although at least he was failing to do what was right out of attachment for the idiots he considered his family instead of because he was, to put it in words Forte would have used enthusiastically if he'd known them, thinking with the wrong head.

Wily couldn't recognize heroism when he saw it because he'd rarely seen anything else.

So he didn't see any particular significance in one of his old, failed creations wandering up to the fight, even though it should be obvious that Wily was a little busy here. Still, it wasn't as though it was a problem: who knew, Omega might even kill one of the annoying things while Wily was dealing with the brat he'd built Sigma.

* * *

Phantom was far more experienced than Lumine, and he was a general while Lumine had had been a construction foreman. Lumine might have had the advantage maneuvering in Zero G, the Guardian thought, but although he was careful to avoid overconfidence he really didn't think the former newgen Maverick leader was much of a threat. Even a cursory check of his energies showed that he was still a Newtype: he hadn't transitioned to the second stage yet if he even knew that was _possible_.

He hadn't even bothered to form a buster, and while his relatively small feet hinted that he had impressive balance and likely agility for a reploid, Phantom was by far the most agile living reploid, so if Lumine was counting on that for an advantage, or had used it as his one advantage against the Hunters, he was in for quite a surprise.

…Oh, right, Phantom belatedly remembered as his kunai went through Lumine's arm without encountering a bit of resistance, the nanites flowing around the blade. Lumine wasn't a reploid. And the only reason that Phantom had his agility was that _he wasn't either_.

He was so used to pretending that he was a normal reploid, because newgens were illegal. Because of Lumine himself.

He even though of himself was a reploid still, because X had called himself a reploid even though he was an android and Zero, well, even if they hadn't been pretending that there wasn't anything odd about Zero he was still a person. He still walked around in a reploid body instead of floating around like an elf or being organic like a human so what did it matter?

Theoretically, Phantom knew, he should be able to control his nanites like that instead of just copying different patterns, taking on different (reploid) forms. That his armor didn't have to act like normal armor.

He just didn't have any idea how to actually make that work. The mechanics of how his nanites actually took on the shape of synthflesh versus armor or any of the other things they mimicked had never been really important, not as long as it kept working, not when there were so many other things to worry about.

Lumine, on the other hand, had built a space elevator. There was probably very little about materials science he didn't know, and what he didn't know, his creator would have.

And that was when Phantom realized that he should have pulled the blow earlier, because his gloved hand had just made contact with Lumine's arm, and _newgens were designed as infiltration units_.

Not just to infiltrate the hunters, oh no. To infiltrate X and Zero's systems, to analyze them as 21XX scientists couldn't, to disable them the way Phantom had temporarily disabled Omega.

Axl had fought off Lumine's infestation, but he'd spent years fighting off the virus and knew what he was doing. It had still put him in a coma for hours.

Phantom wasn't going to give up, but realistically? He was out of the fight. All he could do was try to distract Lumine enough to keep him from going after any of the others, but he'd _dodged_ Omega, not fought him, and that was all the experience he had with this. And Omega had been a single program: this was a massive infiltration. Like suddenly being in a room where the floor was lined with instant death-spikes, and jumping to cling to a wall or the ceiling wouldn't save him because _they were too_.

"_Stay_," Phantom heard as his body moved forward against his will, as Lumine wrapped an arm around him, pulling the smaller (not-)reploid against a pale-armored body.

Leviathan was the one to break away from Omega next, shifting her focus from her own body to the water around them, to her own nanites. If they couldn't get within saber range of Lumine without being disabled the way Phantom had disabled Omega, if they couldn't shoot at Lumine without hitting Phantom, then this was a job for her.

As the ice-dragon charged towards him, Lumine smiled.

"Tentacles?" Was Wily's reaction as the dragon was sliced through and the pieces flung aside. "Tentacles? Those should be on the Evil Overlord list, in the same entry as not turning into a snake. _They never help_." And Wily had lived in Japan, so he'd known better than to _ever _build a robot master with tentacles. It wasn't as though perverted humans needed _encouragement _to fantasize about his children.

"Maybe, maybe not," Lumine said as the Guardians began to cast wary eyes at the ground beneath them: if Lumine could send his nanites out under the sand, how far had they spread? Those tentacles had just suddenly thrust up from under the ground. Normally, there would have been a limit to how many nanites Lumine could deploy even if he made his so-called 'real body' paper-thin, but this was a Wilybot: he could have more mass stored in another dimension or something.

It was the tentacles that finally jogged Fefnir's memory and identified this as Lumine: Axl had mentioned that when they fought him he suddenly got really big and grew tentacles, which… Suddenly didn't seem as ridiculous as it had back when Fefnir was a newbuilt.

And damn, Lumine had already gotten one of the only two that could fly, and sending Harpuia up while Leviathan would have to be the one to make Lumine keep his distance? Fefnir had no illusions about how long he would last before becoming scrap metal at that point.

And that was when more tentacles burst up out of the blasted earth… At Omega's feet. Jumping back, Fefnir saw someone in Zan'ei armor teleport in and then out again a moment later, leaving behind some kind of strange box that seemed familiar somehow as Omega's body was caught in glowing, purple-tinted white: some were trying to envelop him, but most of them were aiming for his head…

For the crystal on his forehead.

If they were human, they would have covered their ears as a strange, discordant pitch of frequencies resolved into a scream of frustration as a black cloud emerged from Omega's body. Not quite an elf, but…

_That _was what the box was! "Aurora!" Fefnir called to her, because even though the cloud was being drawn down towards it Wily was fighting the pull, the tentacles around Omega's body were shredding apart as Omega's nanites destroyed Lumine's. There weren't any other elves in range, and it would take too long to explain what they needed, but Aurora remembered what happened now, right? She'd know what to do?

Weil and Omega terrified the Mother Elf. Wily had pretended to be relatively nice.

And that was why Aurora could leave the shelter of Fefnir's mind, that was why glowing blue-green with purple-black wings could slam him down.

The box closed.

"Well I'll be," Fefnir breathed, stunned as Aurora floated back to him, hovering over and behind his right shoulder.

"Phantom?" Harpuia asked, not putting his swords away yet.

"His personality was destroyed by Omega," Phantom said, staring down at the lump of glowing metal Lumine's body had melted down into with no mind left to keep it in its custom configuration. Lumine hadn't even been _trying _to avoid the strike. "Theoretically he could reconstitute himself eventually, but I don't think that's likely," he admitted, shock and sadness slipping past his discipline.

Because Phantom had found an audio file in his systems after Lumine left them.

"_You. You're the last of our kind. A worthless race passed over by history. I thought we were the future, but we were brushed aside. Evolution is the test of who is worthy, and we lost. I lost. But… there's something Zero said once. That even if reploids were destined to die, to be replaced, he would fight to survive. For _his _kind to survive_." X's kind, X's children. "_If you die, there will be nothing left. No evidence any of us were ever here. So don't,_ _don't die_." His last words, last request, such sad, empty _force _in them.

He'd left that message for Phantom, for the son of the prototype Lumine had hated, and then he'd just let Omega kill him, if that was what it took for the remnants of his will to get past the protection program and force Wily out.

Decades studying people, including criminals, including criminals who were trying to go straight, and Phantom still didn't know what to do, or say, or feel. Axl had died to protect everyone, not just Phantom: so that Zero could come back, so Marino and Cinnamon had vengeance. He hadn't wanted Phantom to think Axl was doing it for him, so he didn't feel responsible, and Phantom didn't. But this uncle he had never even met, who had never seen him before either had just… And Phantom was why.

He felt like he should get a chance to complain somehow. Like he should have grabbed Lumine and said, "You're not allowed to do this, not when I didn't even get a chance to know you!" Because who was left who had ever met Lumine, who could tell Phantom more than half-remembered jokes? Who…

Evolution, he'd said.

If Lumine hadn't done something, then Phantom would have died.

Parents weren't supposed to outlive their children. Phantom wasn't Lumine's, but he was _all there was left_.

The only, precious future of their kind. That had never really mattered to Phantom. His 'kind' were his family.

Axl's son: he was Lumine's family, he realized.

He still didn't like it, but that explained it.

"Fefnir?" Harpuia asked next, since he seemed to know what the hell was going on.

The Red Dragon pointed. "That's a goddamn ghost trap. _She built a fucking ghost trap_."

Phantom and Leviathan stared at him. Then at the box. Then back up at him.

"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle," Leviathan said, stabbing her spear into the ground and folding her arms.

"Like the baby elf containment uni-Get it out of here!" Harpuia yelled, diving forward to grab the box and throw it to Phantom as Omega roared.

Before he managed to roll back onto his feet, a white boot came down on his head.

"G-" The swear was cut so short it almost came out as an annoyed tch as Leviathan grabbed her spear out of the ground. "_Will you just stay dead already!" _she screamed as she charged. Because it had been fun, but the Ice Princess was officially no longer amused.

* * *

_As I mentioned way back in the ANs of the first chapter, killing their skilled workers and driving the smart people who cared about the state of the world to defect to the enemy or flee the city really wouldn't have helped canon Neo Arcadia's ability to do stuff, like generate power or look after humanity. People aren't as replaceable as machines, even ones who are machines. These people, their skill level, their actions and their dedication _matter_, as I've tried to demonstrate throughout the fic. "Oh brave new world, that has such people in it!" is the quote from The Tempest, and it's sad how often people forget the second half of that quote, what _makes _Miranda so impressed by the world outside her little island paradise. The phase 'brave new world' has become simply about progress, forgetting that all progress is made by and depends on people themselves and their actions & choices._


	57. Chronicle Key

There were feelings in the program: X's feelings, since he'd crafted it. Just running the program by itself wouldn't work: X Arc's will had to be behind it. So empathizing with the feelings recorded would help someone care enough to run the program, even though it was already very important to X Arc to save his city. To stop anyone else from being hurt.

_I will sing you this Chronicle Key, precious child, powered by the sacrifice of my body and soul._

_A lullaby to put your mind at ease, to allow you to unlock and face even the most terrible memories, to read the story of your life over again and find an resolution that will bring you true peace. _

_Child possessing divine power, you are not alone. You are not the only one who asks why those with power, those who seek peace, cannot have it. _

_Sleep now, rest now: here in my arms you will have the eternal peace we both have sought, until you have healed, precious child. Until you are at peace with yourself once again, no longer in danger of being destroyed by your own power. No longer seeking death. _

_So I run the program Chronicle Key for you, my precious child. I will protect you, no matter what it costs me._

Run program Exec_ChronicleKey – X Arc extracting.

No two people were exactly the same: no two hearts were one. The part of X Arc that was so weary of all of this identified with Aurora's role. He wanted to be better at this. He wanted to know how to create peace. He was an android with an exact copy of X's programming.

Programming that said he should be hibernating right now, to answer these very questions.

What Weil shaped into Omega was the mind of Zero's body itself, an autopilot designed to protect Wily's youngest child and greatest creation, to slay any who threatened him while he was working outside his body or recovering from a battle. It was originally created as a mechanaloid equivalent of a guard dog, humanoid form or not, but it was old and canny. Old, vicious, and frustrated. The mind it was meant to protect had been removed from it long ago, and then when a new master finally came it was hemmed about with restrictions and no matter how many it killed, its master's distress never seemed to diminish. The process of elimination made it likely that the ones it wasn't allowed to attack were the ones responsible for most of that distress. Then its builder, its first master had come and given it direction and repairs, but now he too had been snatched from it and it was going to _kill everything._

If it was an elf instead of a mechanaloid, the frustration and anger that consumed it would have been a weapon almost as deadly as that saber.

Survival should have been its first priority, to preserve the body for its master. However, it had enough of a mind, enough of a will, to have made the connection that its enemies were the reasons its masters were not here. It wasn't intelligent enough to devise plans other than 'run, hide and wait for master,' and '_kill everything that moves_,' but the second option seemed to fit the bill. It would kill everything that moved, and even things that didn't, until it found one of its masters. Simple. Satisfying.

X's Chronicle Key had pulled the mind bodiless Aurora into X's own body, so she would sleep and dream. Omega didn't have much of a mind, but it did have a body: one designed to be the host of another entity.

So:

Leviathan charged.

The program activated.

X Arc's empty body didn't fall from the sky only because autopilot was on: instead, his thrusters and wings automatically adjusted to bring his armored form down relatively safely.

Phantom ran until he managed to get through to Neo Arcadia's systems to trigger a teleport: for now, he'd put Dr. Wily on the other side of the planet, after rapidly going through several jumps to make him difficult to track.

Omega paused, feeling the presence of a spirit with the correct energy signature telling it to enter sleep mode. Instantly, it passed through anger and out the other side: these things were so annoying that it didn't even want to kill them, and it wanted to kill _everything_. Satisfied, Omega curled up around its new master's cyber-elf and went into sleep mode.

Since Omega _was _Zero's body's autopilot, the deadly armored form began to tip forward.

Leviathan's spear hit dead-on, punching through the armor, disrupting internal systems already a bit twitchy from the recent electrocution/EMP despite repairs, heading straight for the power core.

Omega exploded.

Fefnir and Levaithan quickly moved to stand back-to-back, scanning the blasted field around them and waiting for Omega to reappear. Their systems ticked off the microseconds, counted down the seconds one after another.

And another, and another.

When Omega didn't reappear, Leviathan nervously headed towards Copy-X, spear still out with Fefnir covering her, targeting systems focusing on scanning the area. Going to Harpuia's body wouldn't help: that was a job for an elf, and nothing Leviathan could do would make any difference to whether it worked or not at this point. Better to try to focus on something besides her twin's crushed… Better to focus on what might still be saved until Omega came back, until the battle resumed, until Leviathan needed this rage, bottled up inside her, to give her power.

Hopefully Copy-X had just overstrained himself. Hopefully. Leviathan wasn't sure how he'd started running elf programs, even if he was created by a Ciel but he wouldn't sacrifice himself like an elf, right? Not with his builder, not with all of the Guardians right here to watch him die.

But he didn't wake up, and Omega didn't come back.

* * *

_Operating system designation Harmonics Freyr._

_Warning: foreign program attempting to access system resources. Permit access Y/N? Y_

_Harmonics Freyr running emulation program designation Sol Marta._

_Emulator Sol Marta running creating runtime environment designated Infel Yor._

_Infel Yor hosting program designation Harmonics Elfir. _

_(For the love of you I, Fefnir, will create a place for you within my heart and soul.)_

Although the first cyber-elf was created just to fight the virus, after witnessing the potential of cyber-elves to help reploids Drs. Ciel and Weil began work on an emulation program allowing reploids to host cyber-elves within their systems, enabling the cyber elves to exist in symbiosis with reploids. The reploids would generate power and preserve the minds of the cyber-elves while they altered reality, while the elves would use their powers to strengthen and help the host reploids, just as the virus strengthened mavericks and Zero.

The power that once was wielded by the evil, one that used people as tools would now become a power that helped them. A power that was stronger when wielded by the good, by those who cared about each other, because a cyber-elf whose reploid partner wasn't very appreciative wouldn't be all that motivated to fight the universe on their behalf, and a reploid whose cyber-elf was too demanding wouldn't care enough about the cyber-elf for that emotion to save them if the cyber-elf attempted to run too powerful a program. Selfishness itself would limit the power available to the selfish, while elves and reploids who cared about each other? Who would fight to the death for the sake of their partner, knowing their shieldmate would do the same for them?

Unlike the virus, cyber-elves weren't camouflaged within a reploid's systems. Not normally, anyway.

When Weil hijacked the Mother Elf and turned her into the Dark Elf, used her to take control of reploids' partner elves and use them to drive the reploids mad, the reploids might not have known exactly what was going on, but they could feel the gist of it.

The virus crept up on them, took advantage of the way a young reploid didn't know their own mind yet to change their thoughts, opinions and feelings, bit by bit, until they became not what they wanted but what it did.

The Dark Elf's power made the cyber-elves _scream_, and the reploids who were able to abandon their partners, who shut down the emulation program Sol Marta and kicked the cyber-elves out of their systems before the contamination got too far: those were the ones who escaped, unless they were too young and the elves too powerful.

Yet reploids were the children of X, and so many of them had survived the Maverick Wars, so many of them had already lost too many people. So many of them weren't as afraid as they should be of the threat of having control of their own minds taken away from them because they'd lived with that threat before, gone into battle and knowingly risked it for the sake of their comrades and the world before. So many of them ignored the warnings of their systems, just as they'd ignored the logic that stated that the Maverick Wars were wars of attrition, wars that couldn't be won on the battlefield, and flung themselves into danger.

Reploids built after the Wars ended were placed with newly made cyber-elves when both of them were activated. Abandon their brothers and sisters for the sake of their own survival?

Just as going back into the danger zone to save a comrade made a hunter more likely to get infected during the Maverick Wars, Weil's contamination also seized and corrupted the good and the brave. Was as good as designed to identify all with the potential to become heroes and nip that promise in the bud, use their own valor to bring about their doom before they could acquire the self-awareness and force of will, the power to become a true threat.

It would be incorrect to say that X built Fefnir, the one allegedly-normal reploid among his four children, his four prototypes for the future of the reploid race and its kindred, to betroth him to Aurora while he was still in the capsule or anything like that. He did hope that the future of reploids and cyber-elves would be one of friendship and cooperation, so he built his refined reploid to not only be the equal of an android but incorporating the lessons learned over a century of real-world development of reploids, but to be able to host a cyber-elf.

To host Aurora, specifically.

Because she deserved a chance to be a normal child after saving the world, and having a partner to grow up alongside, having a partner with a pair of hands to do the things she couldn't, share with her the sensations she couldn't feel, would hopefully become the way cyber-elves lived.

Just as humans and reploids could now live together in harmony, each helping the other by sharing their strengths, working together to rebuild their world.

Yet Aurora's mind was too powerful. Ciel and Weil had already tried to find or design a reploid to host her, a little brother or sister for her, but a young reploid's mind was too impressionable. Aurora had already experienced strong feelings and formative events: a reploid's instinctive determination to become their own person wouldn't allow Aurora in their systems without a fight, not when having that strong a personality in their mind might make them a mere satellite of her.

It would take a full android, with a full working version of the infinite potential program and a great deal of stubbornness to not let himself be pushed around by the heroine, to let a being as powerful as the Mother Elf into his systems in the certain knowledge that she wouldn't be able to control him.

No matter _how _much Aurora banged on the inside of his head to make him hurry up and make the ride chaser go faster. (After all, it wasn't the bodiless cyber-elf's problem if it crashed.)

No, X had just hoped that his android son and Zero's first true child would be friends. Would never have to fight each other the way the first android and the first elf were given a destiny of battle they had to work so hard to overcome. X, like Doctor Light, had wanted children that would follow their own paths, live their own lives.

Of course, that didn't keep him _or _Dr. Ciel from sending each other video clips they'd taken with their com units and talking about how adorable it was, the way the two of them bickered all the time, but the instant Harpuia or Leviathan said anything about the other one…

It was obvious to both of them by that point that Aurora had something of a crush on X and they were hoping she'd grow out of it, too.

Resting within X's systems, within a mind as sad and broken as hers, gave Aurora the knowledge that she wasn't alone. If even X could be broken? If he could feel so much pain and still live on, still do what he could for the world, even if all he could safely do was guard her and himself?

Being with Fefnir: it was like going back in time.

Except Fefnir hadn't been determined to protect her back then. What did she need protection for? He hadn't realized that he wanted to protect her until she was taken away. Now she was in his systems, feeling his emotions, knowing that he'd never hated her for what Weil made her do, that the entire time someone was out there fighting _for _her.

That she'd never been worthless, never been without hope, because there was someone out there who…

Someone who thought she was strong, for surviving everything Weil did, not weak for letting it happen, for betraying the world. Someone who didn't see the dark power that contaminated her as proof that she was tarnished, ruined and evil, but battle scars, but hard-won strength no different from Zero's. Power he was willing to trust within his own systems because it was _her _power, and it wasn't just that he trusted her (Weil's programming wasn't her doing or her fault) but because he wanted to take that risk for her. He wanted to put himself in danger for her, to prove to her that she still deserved that. Was still worth it.

He didn't want to protect her just because she needed it: he'd rather she didn't need it. He'd rather she was her old self again, that she didn't need his protection and he didn't need to worry about her.

He believed that she was capable of becoming her old self again. That she was someone who could and would save the day, even if it was just by pushing her grandfather into a box. She hadn't done anything, really, but…

…but he didn't think it was a big deal either, just something that of course she could do. Because she was Aurora, and she could do things like save the day.

Here, inside his mind, that was the reality, and she wanted to stay here forever. She wanted to stay in this place where she was worth something. Where it was possible for her to be a hero. Where she was forgiven for everything her father used her to do.

To X, she'd been one more burden. One more person he'd failed to protect. One more cause of his sadness.

Fefnir, Fefnir was happy she was here, even though it was mixed in among his other emotions and he wasn't focused on it. He was just happy because she was here, even though he was angry at Omega and worried about Harpuia – had enough of his mind been in his systems that destroying his processor wouldn't put him beyond revival?

She wanted to stay here forever, in this part of the universe that was made happier by her presence, no matter how tainted and fallen she had become. Yet because this place existed, she was able to run the same program Weil used to revive Omega faster and keep him healed in order to bring back Fefnir's sister Harpuia.

Because this place, this person existed, she was able to appear outside Fefnir's body as Leviathan shook the X-copy's shoulders, shouting, "Kid? Kid!"

She could tell the Guardian, "He's not there."

"Then where is," Leviathan started to demand angrily, then pushed her fury back to sleep in the depths, to wait until the stars aligned and she was once again given an enemy worth waking it. "Where is he?" she asked, at least sounding more calm. She doubted Aurora was the one she would have to kill to get their kid back.

"He is with Omega. He handed his soul over to Omega to calm it, and the beast took him with it when you killed it."

She could see it in their faces, read the emotion in their systems. Their child, the one they'd taken in and chosen to raise regardless of whether or not they'd built him with their own hands, was dead. Their child, the one who looked up to them, the one they'd promised to guide and protect, the legacy they would leave behind them and the one who would inherit the world they'd built, all the work they'd done, was dead. His body was lying here, intact and still functioning, but he was dead.

_A mother should never outlive her children_, Aurora remembered. Remembered Dr. Arciel trying to rescue her, remembered what her father had done to her mother out of his mad ideals, that no one could possibly be good or noble so she had to be evil inside, it was in her blood, and he'd torture and twist her until she stopped believing there was any good in him, until she became as mad as he was and stood, or rather floated, human body too damaged to survive without Weil's 'upgrades,' beside him once again.

Somehow, she could think of this now, remember this, without immediately flinging herself at the universe, crying out for it to not be so, trying to make it not be so, not be real, it _couldn't _be real, she'd rather be dead than exist in a universe where it was real…

But a mother shouldn't outlive her children. Arciel put herself in Weil's hands both because she still believed in the man, but because she'd wanted to save Aurora. For both her daughters to survive.

She wanted to stay with Fefnir. She wanted to stay in this place people wanted her, with her childhood friends, the people she'd known in those innocent years when she was a hero. She wanted to have nothing to fear, because Fefnir would protect her.

Even though she knew that was a lie. Fefnir couldn't protect this child. Just like Arciel couldn't protect Aurora. It was a comforting lie but it was a lie. So, "I'll bring him back," she promised them, floating serenely on the surface, clinging desperately to the calm she'd learned from X, as she wondered if that was also a lie.

If she couldn't bring him back, she'd never be able to face Fefnir again, even though she knew logically that Fefnir wouldn't blame her if she did her (insignificant) best.

She would bring him back or die trying. Not because of any noble determination to save him no matter what, but because if she couldn't, she wouldn't care enough to save herself from the enemy she was about to face.

_What am I doing_? She wondered. _This is insane_, she knew.

But it was what any of them would have done, her childhood friends, and she, she wanted to be one of them once again.

She wanted to be the Aurora whose memory Fefnir had kept alive all this time.

* * *

_Vorkosigan reference: to paraphrase, 'He follows you because you see and thus create in him a better man than he could otherwise be.' _

_I tend to use more 'passive heroine' language for Aurora and her angsting: despite her efforts, she's still wrong genre savvy due to the torture and deliberate attempt to inflict learned helplessness and such. Still, I've tried to show how the thought patterns Weil scarred into her mind can be twisted around to empower her: that kind of mental judo is likely the result of being in X's care for that time, since X spent that century with nothing much to do but tinker with himself and think about how he was thinking and feeling and what people might be like. _


	58. Mother Dark

Journeying through cyberspace was the least dangerous part. The few stray cyberelves she saw quickly vanished when they saw her. That wasn't cowardice but pure sensible caution, for normal elves.

This was territory that used to belong to the virus. Infel Phira's domain, and even though the mavericks were freed there were still defense programs that roamed this space, manifesting in the forms of ancient robots.

Aurora wasn't sure why those cyber-elves were here at all. There wasn't any treasure here, unless you counted power that wasn't accessible to the uninfected. Were they hoping to unlock that power and use it to come back to life? Did they want to unleash the virus on the world once again because they agreed with it about humans? Were they trying to find the center of this place, hoping that there was something here they could destroy in order to destroy it and the virus once and for all? Were they just destroying the defense program manifestations that they _could _destroy, in order to keep them from wandering out into formerly-safe areas?

Had they run because they recognized her for what she was or just because they'd seen that she was too powerful for them to fight? Were any of them brave and foolish enough to want to fight, but not too foolish to go and find allies before tackling her?

Aurora knew absolutely nothing about the elves that lived in this place, either reploids or true cyber-elves. When she came here to cure the virus, there had been elves in Infel Phira, yes, but those taken by the virus. After that she'd been curious enough to visit her grandfather a handful of times, but the regular world was much more fun. Her gran-Dr. Wily's ghost had never talked about the other elves here, didn't regard them as worth mentioning. Actually, she was the only real elf here back then. All the original cyber-elves other than her had been symbiotes, their minds protected by reploids the way X had held hers while she fixed the virus. It was just reploid ghosts, and Dr. Wily hadn't thought much of reploids.

Not if he'd… done something to them that was like what Weil did to her, wasn't it?

She'd thought he was just a bit cranky, but he was never mean to her and he'd showed her a few tricks. In hindsight, it was really very dangerous of her to keep talking about Fefnir like that. What if he'd done something to the Lightbot that befriended her the way X befriended Zero?

Fefnir might be alright only because Dr. Wily had never really cared about her enough. No, that was definitely the reason. He'd let her come visit him because he didn't have anyone else to talk to, no one else that was willing or able to talk to him whose presence she would tolerate. She was a knock-off, just like reploids.

He'd considered Zero a traitor for fighting the virus, so most likely the only reason he didn't hold her responsible for curing it was that he held her in too much contempt. She'd just been a tool, was just a little empty-headed ball of hot air who didn't know the first thing about the real world, about its cruelty or what made the virus necessary, and he hadn't cared enough about her to warn her about humanity.

What would have happened if he'd warned her about her parents? That they had just made her to use her, were going to turn on her? What if he'd warned her about Weil, even if he had evidence?

She wouldn't have wanted to hear it. She wouldn't have understood why he was saying things like that. Aurora could imagine him trying to warn her, how she would have gotten more and more upset until she ran away, right into Weil's grasp wanting Daddy to reassure her.

He hadn't cared enough to try to rescue her from Weil. Especially not when this was what happened to anyone who trusted humans, not when he'd been waiting for Weil to win. She was sure he would have killed Weil and rescued her after he'd beaten X and Zero, after Weil had rounded up all the remaining humans. It would be simple for Wily to activate the failsafes Weil had missed. Take control of the baby elves, make them use reploids to kill all the humans. She might have been patted on the head and told that it would be alright now, the nasty humans were gone. Except for him.

What would he have done with himself, to himself, if he'd ever won?

When she first came here, she'd been with X. All the other times, she'd found her Grandfather or he found her. Now she was in this place by herself, and floating through Infel Phira's levels, the space claimed by what had once been the virus felt like she was going further and further in the darkness because it was quite true. This was the darkness Weil had altered and wrapped her in to make her the Dark Elf. This was the system that she'd drawn on, the system that Omega was a part of. What was Omega but one of the guardian programs, the ones who let her pass but watched her, and even though she could see in their code that they were watching over her, because she was authorized it still terrified her, because she had no bravery now, not anymore, and wasn't it Omega's programming to protect the soul caged inside that Weil used?

'Protect' her by slaughtering everything. Protect her by injuring her every time she tried to get out, so she couldn't build up power to eventually get out. Protect her by drawing on her to create something akin to the virus to take control of reploids to protect her.

Just like Wily meant to protect reploids, and robot masters, by using them to fight and kill?

She knew her avatar was growing smaller and smaller, that the dark wings Weil fused to her were wrapped around her like a cloak because she wanted to be small, wanted to hide when she should be trying to push that energy away. Yet now it marked her as a part of this place, and she wanted to be small, be insignificant. Not worth paying attention to, not at all, just another servitor program.

Just like Daddy said she was, after Daddy… after he became _vile_.

But, but it was alright to think that way for now, wasn't it? X had said so, to use what Weil did to her against him, to take every scrap of silver from it that she could. So if believing that she was small and useless and no threat, not worth attacking at all, could give her the will to keep going forward into this place, then that, that was a kind of strength, right?

She wished Fefnir was there for a moment, as she went past a green Cyclops, short but roughly humanoid. Bringing him into danger, (he was a Lightbot!) dragging him out of his body just because she was weak, though? Because she was afraid (but he'd want to help her)?

Aurora didn't deserve that, or so she believed, so she kept going instead of yielding to what was really an excuse to go back to the Guardians, who wouldn't force her to try again. If she ran away now, when someone's life was at stake, would she ever have the courage to come here, to rescue him?

Copy-X would just be one more person who wasn't alive anymore, who was taken from their family because of her.

She was thankful that the area she needed wasn't very far in. It felt too far already. Yet Zero was like her (except so much better) and so his body was really just a periphrial system. Bodies, empty shells constructed in hidden systems, waiting to be activated if he ever needed them, either as a replacement or as killer drones, like Omega became under Weil's control. Powerful bodies, as powerful as X, but they were just camouflage, in the end. Dr. Wily had meant him to wake up seventy years after X awakened, to seem to be just one more android. He'd been sure X would have been killed and units based on him enslaved by then, or at the least X would be trapped in a lab somewhere as they tried to make his infinite potential system make them better slaves. If that happened, Zero might have been a liberator. But it hadn't.

She knew she was close when the walls around her began to become cracked, bent out of shape, compressed or pulled apart by a system that had outgrown the space allocated to it. Wily had surely never anticipated that someone else would take control of one of Zero's bodies, since that fundamentally wouldn't be possible unless Zero gave up his power, for one thing. Weil couldn't have kept Omega unless Wily let him, refrained from using his overrides to see what Weil would do.

So what should have been a temporary use autopilot meant to rely on the virus, on Zero, to do any actual _thinking _required had become the centerpiece of a war. Fighting _X_. Fighting some of Weil's restrictions, although Weil kept a close enough eye on Omega to spot any conflicts between his programming and Omega's before they made Omega seriously decide to break Weil's programming.

Fighting _her_, the first time Weil caged her and the two times she'd tried to escape again after that (only two, so weak, so terrible that she'd only fought twice while so many other people died fighting!). Fighting the substitute for the one it was made to protect.

Android mental programming, how they thought, was based on X's tested formulae. Omega hadn't been designed to think, not at all, but it didn't have access to the virus or Zero and it certainly hadn't taken instructions from her.

If Aurora knew anything about the human brain, she might have described the jungle of cables that began to overrun this space, breaking through walls, ending uselessly in the middle of the floor, tugged around by moving platforms and strangling the helpless lesser security programs that wandered into its reach as something akin to human synapses. A mind that thought by making connections, or in Omega's case tried attempted it.

She knew that if Weil had used it long enough, it would have eventually become sentient. It was a mechanaloid, it was based on X's programming. Mechanaloids stayed at animal level because they didn't have the infinite potential system, but they could learn the way animals could learn tricks, and do some simple trial-and-error problem solving. They got better at their jobs over time.

Omega was meant to protect the soul it was hosting if it couldn't protect itself: it had woken up during the maverick wars when Zero's mind was incapacitated. Aurora had very definitely been unable to protect herself, but Omega hadn't been able to realize that her enemy was Weil or that what was bothering her was killing people, when they were just killing humans and Lightbots.

It had tried to solve the problem of her, of her resistance to Weil's and Wily's goals, and the mind that had created this entire structure saw reprogramming as a perfectly valid solution.

Omega had tried to infect her.

Weil had wanted her to retain enough of her own will to be horrified by what was happening. Omega's scans had identified her as to-be-protected because what Weil did to her made her like the virus, made her seem infected, but if she was distressed because of the deaths of valid targets, then there must be errors in her programming.

Omega must have tried to flood Zero with the virus when it was in control too, but Zero could fight it off. Aurora had been broken to make sure she couldn't fight _anything _off. Omega didn't have access to the virus, she'd destroyed the virus generation system inside this body as well, but Weil had already given it programming to affect her mind, programming to let it use the power of her will.

When Omega warped reality to kill, it did it with her power, her stolen, used, violated emotions. Every time it happened, it reduced her to a wreck. That was mental damage, and it was supposed to protect her from damage.

X's mind, X's systems had sheltered hers, but they hadn't invaded her. It was her choice if she used his hibernation system programming. He'd tried to let her overcome the chains Weil placed in her mind, not hook more chains, more wires in, trying to make her murder and _enjoy _it.

Omega wanted to help her, that was what terrified her the most. Since she'd _needed _help, wanted someone to rescue her, and giving in really would have ended most of her pain. Giving in, becoming what Omega saw as a proper being, a proper heir to Zero would have made her a monster but she was a monster already. She was dark and tainted and a killer already, and the pain would stop.

All it wanted to do was protect her. All it wanted to do was fix what was wrong with her. All it wanted to know was who to kill to make her stop suffering. All it was trying to do was resolve the compatibility issues, make her think like, think _with _the virus. Use her own infinite potential system to become a truly viral being. If she did that, then she would be able to fulfill her purpose, override and fix whatever was wrong with Omega's programming that was keeping it from protecting her properly and kill all humans. Kill Weil.

It wasn't even that Omega was trying to tempt her. None of this was lies, it wasn't anywhere near smart enough to lie. This was truth, as its programming saw it.

The virus made reploids believe in the virus' version of reality. They'd used programming based on the virus to create her in the first place, then Weil tacked more of it, the twisted, evil parts they'd originally tried to keep out of her onto her.

She'd wanted her mommy, daddy, wanted someone to protect her, to save her so very much. It would have been so easy to restore the virus' original pattern. Make herself hate humans, so she wouldn't be hurt anymore by what Weil was doing anymore, wouldn't want her Daddy back anymore, could simply see him as an insect to be crushed.

The program just wanted to give her what she wanted: safety, escape, freedom, not being used anymore.

And that was what made it so dangerous, so terrifying. It had been so hard, so hard not to give in, when so many atrocities were processed through her mind or flashed in front of her eyes. She'd wanted to make Omega stop, and if the virus was the only way to communicate with it…

She had let it contaminate her. More than just a little. If Zero hadn't captured her when the two of them destroyed Omega, if he hadn't made her purify all the elves _including herself_? Yet that was why she still had as much darkness in her as she did.

Aurora wasn't sure if Weil had known this was happening. He likely had, since he would have wanted to make sure she didn't get too much control over Omega. Yet it had worked out perfectly for him, had it? When the only way for her to struggle, to try to be free and do good just made her more evil, more tainted and wretched and unable to defy Weil's orders to destroy, hadn't that just helped him condition her to think that opposing his will was useless?

She shuddered, wrapped her arms around herself and had to stop now, find a corner free of cables to curl up in and shiver.

Omega wasn't going to attack her when she reached the core, she knew. It would try to wrap her up, soothe her, hook these cables _into her mind and… _She felt so unclean that if she'd been human she might have started scratching at her skin, trying to _get it off, get it off_, but it wasn't that easy to take the darkness out of her veins, the memories out of her head.

It was so simple when she was out there.

Sacrifice her soul. Let Omega have her so the programming was satisfied, so it didn't resume looking for Zero and killing everything else it found on general principles the instant Copy-X was taken away. F

So Fefnir didn't die.

So he would remember her for doing something noble, rescuing someone that surely even Fefnir knew was a lot more worthy to live than she was.

If even X had sealed himself away to protect the world, what right did she have to be out in it? When X was so much stronger than her, and he'd still become broken enough to become a danger to innocent people?

She had Wily's madness in her and Weil's both. She could crack the way her father had and hate everything just as much as herself and try to turn the world into hell. She could yield to her grandfather's twisted belief that he was doing the right thing because that way the pain and self-hatred would stop and quest to redeem herself for curing the virus and then serving a human by bringing about Elysium.

The stability she'd been able to pretend she had in X's embrace, in circumstances designed to let her have that stability was falling away, she knew. It was better to stay here, let herself be caged away from the world so she didn't hurt anyone. So she didn't hurt Fefnir, so he didn't see that he was wrong, that the Aurora he knew was dead and all that was left was an _evil thing_.

She shook and wanted someone and it was a cable bumping into her that let her move, _made _her move, and surely it was only luck she fled in the right direction. She didn't know when she would have stopped running.

The copy of X was curled up on top of a nest of cables wearing a helmet (a representation of the defensive programs meant to keep anyone from hacking in before it evolved defenses) and a nightshirt (not really representative of anything but the fact that this was not just a person but a child in the mind of the one who programmed this avatar, so people shouldn't be staring at his naked frame). There was an hourglass about a foot away from his head: sand was pouring through to signify that the process was ongoing, but if sand really _was _pouring through at that rate, there would be a lot more than a sixth of the sand in the bottom of the glass. Cautiously she tapped the glass, since it was obviously a status readout.

_Testing period 17.479 percent complete. Currently analyzing RL experience and checking against current beliefs and behavioral patterns in order to calculate integrity level and design appropriate simulations to allow refinement of individual strategies and way of life. _

"Integrity level?"

_Integrity level: Degree to which actions are in line with core beliefs. How true to themselves someone is. An integrity level of one hundred percent would be absolute free will, someone who is controlled by nothing but themselves and their own conscience. Some otherwise desirable actions must be refrained from because of undesirable consequences. See files Game Theory, Enlightened Self-Interest, Ethical Testing Simulations…_

The brown-haired young man shifted a little in his sleep, shifting to increase his systems integration level, and the cables obligingly adjusted themselves to make sure the way he was currently about half on his back and half on his side, one arm under him and the other stretching out away from his body, not to mention the sprawl of his legs, was comfortable. He was breathing softly, and when Aurora looked closer she saw that the arm that wasn't stretched out was actually wrapped around one of the cables, Copy-X already having adapted to hook himself into this system and tug on it to have it do what he wanted.

Aurora was impressed, since it had always been Omega hooking into _her_, but to be fair Copy-X had been created in a system much bigger than he was, so he was used to dealing with complex structures that had adapted to fit someone else and needing to adjust them to find a way to be comfy and get things done. Since sleep currently meant automatic hibernation mode, and would until he was thirty, he did actually do most of that adaptation work in his sleep.

She experimentally tugged on the entangled arm, trying to free him from the system, but the cables tightened around him and Omega's own Avatar, a white-haired and black-armored version of Zero appeared crouched on the other side of Copy-X.

The elf tried not to gulp. "He's supposed to be transferred back to his original body. I'll be taking his place?" So his programming should be satisfied.

The red-eyed beast, God of Destruction actually _whined_. It was supposed to protect, not judge those it protected, but it was still a mechanaloid, still possessed basic emotions. After dealing with the confusion of Weil's programming and Aurora, it finally got some nice-straightforward attacking things under its original programmer to work the frustration out, without having to deal with constant mixed signals. He'd even finally been debugged! Now it had Copy-X, who was absolutely no trouble at all. Not to mention designed, like X, to be hooked into a capsule monitoring his health at this stage, so Omega kept getting 'everything's good here' status updates that were not only like a pat on the head, confirmation he was doing it right but quite a relief, since it had spent those years doing an absolutely terrible job and was thus a little paranoid.

Two nice masters who didn't make its programmed little head hurt in quick succession and now _great_. _She _was going to come back. The one who couldn't make up her mind. Not to mention the one who wanted to die, and since on the one hand he was supposed to kill things his master wanted dead and on the other he was supposed to protect his master from harm, which meant definitely not killing them…

It was not _supposed _to faced with problems that could not be solved by the enthusiastic application of violence!

If refusing to comply with an order from an authorized master was an option, it would have sent a status update/feeling along the lines of, 'Go away, you make my head hurt.' It _liked _this one. The master it had now hadn't had him kill anything yet, but that was because it was sleeping, not getting in situations where it was in danger and Omega had to kill stuff. Copy-X wasn't exciting, but he was definitely _very _low-maintenance. Practically all Omega had to do was allocate adequate processor space to be a Good Support Unit.

Aurora realized that she'd expected Omega to grab her, because that was what Weil made it do. However, now that it was free of Weil's programming and had another master, it didn't have any drive to do so and certainly didn't have any inclination, since without its programming distorted it was able to tell that grabbing her certainly hadn't had positive effects on her status.

She wasn't even sure she could order it to stop protecting Copy-X and take her instead, since currently it was protecting Copy-X, he was the master and protecting the master took priority, especially since Copy-X had somehow been labeled as possessing the same authority over Infel Phira she did.

Omega definitely did not want to, and right now she couldn't make him.

Well, alright, that left Copy-X. He could tell Omega to take her. She reached for the boy, only to have her hand blocked by Omega's: she managed to stop short of touching it.

She froze. All of Weil's programming was gone, but reaching towards her to grab her… Freezing was all she could do, she couldn't fight, couldn't escape, couldn't do anything, and…

Seeing her obvious distress again basically made Omega go oh _hell_. She wasn't his current master, thank goodness, but she was _a _master… And he had another master now, thank Master. A master that wasn't insane, could make up its mind, and could tell the support unit what to do to _make the headache go away_.

Omega sent a bug report that manifested as its avatar pawing at Copy-X's back with a whine.

The reploid jerked upright wide-eyed. "OhdearI'm late!" His panicked scramble to move from hibernation mode to control of his body was aborted when he saw that there were people in his systems. Also, these weren't his systems. His data check manifested as rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

_Oooooh,_ that wasn't his 'seriously, wake up: it doesn't matter what you're contemplating, you can't have five more seconds without being late so abort process' alarm, that was a _bug report_. X Arc had never gotten an actual system error/inadequacy report before, because he was using X's systems and they were very thoroughly tested, practically optimal in every way. "Hello?" he said on general principles. "Oh, I know you, you came to see the man in cyberspace. My name's X Arc: what's yours?"

* * *

_Imagine that you live in 21XX in this 'verse. Viral paranoia, robots trying to kill you, constant fear… Very sci-fi dystopia. And then you run into X, who is absolutely decent and nice, and, well, a Lightbot. Not to mention trying to make the world a better place and believing that a peaceful world where you can basically assume that most people won't act like jerks is the default, instead of one of constant war and fear. People in X series tend to treat him as too optimistic/Wrong Genre Savvy, while although Rock gets a similar reaction from Wilybots they aren't in quite so bleak a world, despite the retirement law and such. _

_Anyway, being beaten by Rock or encountering a Lightbot in Zero series really should be like being hit by a very nice sledgehammer. Getting disoriented (possibly concussed) and left with something of a headache, but in a nice way. Or like drive-by chocolates. Kind of, 'well, that was unexpected, and I'm not complaining, but now I have to rethink my entire view of the world to incorporate the fact that stuff like this apparently happens/people like you apparently aren't mythical creatures.' _

_Usually when people are surprised that something can actually happen, it's because they weren't cynical enough. 'The world you live in is a much better one and I wish to know where I can apply for citizenship.'_


	59. Those Who Watch Over

"And of course one of his wing panels had to get jammed in the sand," Harpuia grumbled, pale eyes just slightly rolled. He decided to attribute his irritation to lingering effects of the evil chip despite the fact he was well aware he didn't work that way. He just was very annoyed and wanted an excuse to_ be_ annoyed even though Copy-X clearly shouldn't be blamed for his auto-pilot doing whatever was necessary to keep him standing up.

The truth was that being irritated was far more pleasant than being worried, because irritation was only one step away from anger and the thing about anger that made it so seductive was the implied promise that whatever problem had caused it could be solved by the application of directed violence. The last time Copy-X fell unconscious, Harupia had been able to channel the resulting stress and protective anger into executing his plan to attack Omega. Unfortunately Omega seemed to be staying exploded this time, so there wasn't actually anything productive for Harpuia to do but pull Copy-X's wing out from between a couple of pieces of broken concrete and lay him down on the ground.

Standing up was harder than humans made it look, and even with the wing and two feet meaning Copy-X had been supported by something of a tripod arrangement, if he fully shut down and his automatic balance system stopped functioning, a good stiff breeze would have knocked him over. With his wing panels out, his center of gravity became very poorly situated. Infinite potential system or no infinite potential system, it made Harpuia wonder if Ciel had even _heard _of a wind tunnel at that age. She wouldn't have had access to a real one, but the Rekku had inherited the Maverick Hunters' simulation program. It would have been far easier for her to get a copy of it than of X's latest set of full spec scans.

"Put him down here," a female human voice said authoritatively. If Harpuia hadn't had Dr. Ciel's voiceprint on file, he would have estimated the speaker was in her early thirties. Her voice was hoarse, presumably from crossing the wastes.

When he turned to look at her the guardian would have winced in sympathy if he didn't recall that she had packed herself and so those radiation burns were her own damn fault. While Neo Arcadia used either electricity, infra-red or just plain fire for their energy weapons, Weil had used more exotic forms of energy. Radiation was actually more harmful to unshielded reploids than to humans, since humans had spent millions of years living on a ball of radioactive rock constantly bombarded by more radiation from their sun, so they had some built-in defenses. Unfortunately, one of the downsides of building Neo Arcadia in Australia was that the planet's natural shielding against external radiation was weaker here, and Ciel's ancestors had come from a part of the planet that was relatively low on radiation.

"Dr. Cerveau?" the Guardian said to the girl's minder.

"Yes, General?"

"Sunscreen." Wasn't the entire point of having a joint program for training bodyguards to make sure they had individuals capable of dealing with any and all threats to the people who were important to Neo Arcadia's future? A reploid's minder needed to know basic repairs and upkeep, and a humans's needed to know that it was necessary to apply a shieldboost solution to skin this pale before they were in the sun for long periods. Too many severe radiation burns to a human's skin caused one of the more annoying forms of cancer.

Dr. Cerveau let out a sigh that was as good as saying, "God_dammit_, Ciel," and yanked the young doctor away from her creation by her long blonde hair. "Lark, could you get the first aid kit out of the pack I brought? There should be a gold tube with sunscreen written on it."

"I'm _fine_," Ciel protested, hands reaching in Copy-X's direction as though some part of her were hoping they'd extend instead of trying to fight off Dr. Cerveau's grip.

"No, you're not." Guardian Fefnir knew burns. That one wouldn't look as bad as it actually was for a few more hours, but it had already progressed to the point that the nerves of her face must be screaming at her.

Ciel blinked at him, then winced. Pulling herself together again, she insisted, "I'm _fine_… but the topical numbing cream might help me focus."

Cerveau gave the young blonde human another look as he reached out with his free hand to take the tube from Lark.

"Well, I was fine until he pointed it out to me!" Just like that time she'd kept looking for a pen and hadn't felt a thing until she noticed there was a staple in her hand. That experience hadn't helped improve Ciel's opinion of mandatory oversight reports.

"You need to stop overriding status alerts," her long-suffering partner said. To be fair, it certainly wasn't that Ciel was stupid: she'd eat when she knew she was hungry and drink when she was thirsty, because otherwise she knew her condition would worsen and she wouldn't be able to work. She'd even put a lot of work into meditation techniques so that she could stop thinking long enough to fall asleep even when she was working on a project. The trouble was _noticing_ that she needed to stop doing what she was doing to take care of something else.

"My brain just does it! Look, I promise I'll work on something that will let me adjust my internal settings so I can turn off the overrides just as soon as I'm done with the generators and he's okay!" Ciel said as Cerveau started putting the sunscreen on her face and neck, forcing her to close her eyes. "And I can put sunscreen on myself!" She wasn't a kid anymore!

"Yes, but will you?" Cerveau asked her. "And I mean rubbing it in so that your exterior layer can absorb it properly, not just putting it on and letting it sit there until it falls off."

"…Alright, alright, I will," she said, embarrassed to admit to herself that she would have done the quickest and most slapdash job she could get away with so that she could get back to work if he hadn't said that. She _knew _she needed to take care of her health, but this was her creation!

She'd seen this problem before, with Zero: the trouble was that he wasn't in his body, but since she'd just approached the entire problem of people and bodies and keeping them where they were put from another angle, she'd definitely think of something this time!

Harpuia wondered how the human had gotten here so fast, and thought that someone really should tell her that she should get away. Since Omega stopped coming back because Copy-X gave him his soul, which Harpuia would have _words _with him about when he was brought back (the Mother Elf had _better _have gone to get him back), Omega could return, with the squishy human at Ground Zero, but Harpuia didn't say anything. The First Law didn't come into it when a few hundred meters or few hundred kilometers: neither made any particular difference.

She was clearly taking responsibility for her creation: that was an improvement.

If anything, seeing her like this had reduced his dislike of her. She might have missed an important detail that affected her creation's welfare, but it wasn't because of a deliberate oversight or particular neglect. It certainly wasn't due to selfishness.

Humans had a certain logic hole in their programming that back before they developed logic, the scientific method and all the things that let them figure out how to think accurately was actually a feature.

If there was a contradiction between what the community believed and the evidence a human saw with their eyes, most of them would ignore their own personal observation of the truth and believe what the majority believed. For buggy logic machines, that was sensible: which was more likely, that one machine had broken down or ninety-nine had? However, once human knowledge and culture increased to the point of needing specialists, who might run across information the other humans hadn't known when they came to their own conclusions, this became a problem. Instead of humans all observing the same data, now the one could reach a different conclusion from the ninety-nine because they had access to data the others didn't.

Individual humans were quite intelligent, on the whole. Groups of them, repeating what 'everyone said,' could end up believing things that were quite obviously disproven by factual data all of them had personally seen.

One of the only ways to boost human intelligence genetically, besides increasing skull capacity which allowed for more neurons (the difference between Neanderthals and cro-magnons) was to shut down that little oversight mechanism that kept track of what 'everyone said' and obeyed it. That made humans think things like 'math is hard,' creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Humans had to learn how to think in order to be good at anything, so most of intelligence was really a matter of how they were raised and if they were taught the necessary toolkit for tackling problems.

The trouble was that evolution hadn't already removed that oversight mechanism because it automatically did a lot of things and made humans acquire a lot of information that was very useful. Without it, humans had to learn and do a lot of difficult things, like picking out what to wear in the morning, manually.

It was entirely believable, seeing Ciel now, that she hadn't been aware that red eyes were taboo in the first place, forget knowing that this was because of the history of the Maverick Wars and what they symbolized or could mean. When would that information ever have been relevant to her young life, when she wasn't set to absorb the knowledge and scars others had gained from a vanished past?

Harpuia had read Sherlock Holmes, long ago. The man had tried not to learn non-essential things like how the earth revolved around the sun. It didn't quite work that way, but the fact remained that human brain capacity spent tracking the incredibly complex thing that was society was brain capacity and attention not spent on observing reality.

Ciel had been smart enough to build Copy-X despite having had so little time to learn things and gain experience because she'd specialized to the point that even after living in the wastes for years and personally experiencing the results of going outside without sunscreen, surely, her brain still tossed out _radiation burns _as inconsequential compared to her creation and her goals the way Sherlock Holmes had tried to forget basic astronomy.

Since Harpuia didn't know anything about Wily or cloning, he could only assume that Ciel was the way she was because of Neo Arcadia's policy of genetic tampering to boost not just human health but human intelligence not just for the good of the city but so that they would be useful enough for reploids to understand why so many resources were spent on keeping them around. Which essentially made the red eyes his responsibility, since they were a product of the system he supported. His fault just as much as hers.

"Alright, I'll start with his wing panels," Ciel decided, clapping her hands together to signal that she was starting now, focusing now, and could not be held responsible for any non-creation-related things that happened until she was done fixing her baby.

"You can start by telling me what this is," Leviathan corrected her, poking at it with the end of her spear as Phantom got back from putting the box Dr. Wily was in somewhere secure, hopefully.

Seeing that the human and her companions were with them and Omega wasn't, he asked, "Status?"

Harpuia and Fefnir looked at each other, since Leviathan was keeping an eye on what she'd found. "The boy is unconscious, Omega is temporarily incapacitated and Aurora believes she can fix the first and hopefully extend the second," Harpuia summed up.

Fefnir's half-shrug indicated that there wasn't anything urgent for Phantom to do, so he holstered his kunai. "I'll find some cyber-elves and see what I can do for the Judges." He was certain that Schilt and Cubit Foxtaur were revivable: they were more valuable infected than dead so the program he'd emulated to let him know what he would do if he really was under control hadn't wanted to make it permanent.

He felt somewhat bad about Cubit: she'd had a crush on him after a certain operation during the Second Elf War when he'd managed to stop her from doing something she _really _didn't want to do, but with a baby elf on hand? Well, Weil's Numbers had never had much in the way of choices.

Instead of going away, it turned into admiring from afar: after all this time she still thought she was unworthy to approach him and with that kind of attitude a healthy relationship just wasn't possible, so giving her a chance and seeing if she'd get over it that way wasn't an option. Being killed by him, even for the sake of defending Neo Arcadia from Omega and Wily… No. Damn. He'd forgotten what it was like for the Numbers, how twisted it left their priorities. How much they'd desperately wanted to be free, to die and have a little while before they had to be monsters again, even if they couldn't die and stay free.

She probably dreamed of him killing her. So instead of worrying about that he'd her, he now knew that he'd just added more fuel to the fire. Being revived by him wouldn't help much, even if he certainly wasn't going to be cruel enough to hold her in his arms.

"It's like it's alive," Ciel said, and Phantom turned to see what she was talking about.

The metal on the ground where Lumine dissolved wasn't flowing around Leviathan's speartip, it wasn't that mobile, that alive, but it was giving way too easily when she poked it.

"What was that term for a nanite-only robot?" Ciel wondered. "Devil or demon?"

Leviathan, Harpuia and Fefnir stared at her, almost getting outraged on Phantom's behalf for a moment before they remembered that right, those were the words from the old stories. Which certainly hadn't helped the newtypes' PR, after Lumine.

It didn't show any signs of oozing down into the sand, perhaps going down and down to be lost in the bedrock, but Phantom said, "I'll get a containment unit to put it in," and vanished quickly.

"I'll look at it later," Ciel promised, before turning back to Copy-X. His self-repair systems would take care of the wing panels before too much longer, but that meant she needed to look at them _now _to have any hope of seeing whether or not they were related to whatever he'd been doing when he gave his cyber-elf to Omega (that was just too dangerous!). Right now, they were her best clue, and even if they were just a transmitter she could follow the link. She knew how to unfold the bits of X's systems she needed out of the potential space they were kept in, so it wouldn't hide from her that way.

She knew this body inside and out, she'd built it with her own hands, so she could fix it. Even if it was a new system, it would have to be compatible with the old, so it still wouldn't be beyond her reach. It wasn't possible.

_He _couldn't possibly be beyond her reach.


	60. Child of Light

"My name is Aurora Elpis," she found herself saying before she had a chance to think better of it. "It's nice to meet you." Old, old courtesy routines, because how long had it been since she'd introduced herself to anyone?

"You're the Mother Elf?" He looked more than a little surprised, but not worried. Then he did look worried, and asked, "Are you alright? Omega didn't get you again or anything, did he… _Oh_." Right, _that _was what he was doing here. Moving bodies had interfered with his short-term memory since there was some confusion over where exactly it was supposed to write to as it transferred from immediate runtime to data storage. "Yes. Should you be here? Do you need help getting out?"

"Actually, I'm here to get you out," she told earnest green eyes without any shadows in them, blushing a little because he did remind her of when she'd first met X, just a little. Fortunately she wasn't newly activated anymore and wasn't going to let anything like, 'you have a pretty soul' slip out. Not the way X's was, even back then, but fresh and clean, somehow, like one of the nature garden biodomes after the sprinklers in the roof simulated rain.

He frowned, brow crinkling. "Thank you, but one second. Um, what was it they used… Method_Despedia …What would your name be?" he wondered, looking at Omega. "Or no, let me look at the body I'm in." a panel of sorts appeared before his hands, strings coming from it tied to his hands. "Defense systems," he said, tugging at one of them. "_Here _we go." He nodded, closing his eyes and she felt the data queries. "I thought that was why it worked the way it did." X Arc sounded pleased that he was figuring this out. "If I leave, he'll go wild again. But if I don't leave," he said, eyes widening with realization, "everyone will be worried. Oh dear. I thought I could confine Omega's spirit inside _me_, but he's too attached to this kind of body."

"I meant to take your place," Aurora admitted quietly, arms wrapped around herself.

He looked up at her, not so much startled as wondering why she would want to do that. "Well, that would give him someone to protect, but if it was me, I would have a hard time being reminded of everything Weil used me for every time I looked in a mirror. Especially when it isn't even your face."

That hadn't even occurred to her.

"We could see about a rebuild," he offered. "If you lent Neo Arcadia your power, you could help a lot of people, just like before." Before she was made into the Dark Elf. "I'm sure of it. There will be compatibility problems with modern parts," X Arc was sure of it, now that he was connected to this system. "But I could ask my builder, Dr. Ciel… Actually, she's your grandniece, so she will probably insist on helping you herself." Since the city would have to charge for the work, no matter who she was: Neo Arcadia gave to those who gave back, but family was family.

"It's fine, really," she said, looking to the side.

"So what_ is_ bothering you?" Head tilted to the side, he waited patiently, focused on her, as though he wasn't trapped in the body of a killing machine and his family wasn't outside waiting for him. As though he didn't have his own life to live and people he could help. She was the person in front of him right now, so if he couldn't even help her?

"It…" It seemed so pitiful, so weak of her to be frightened now. Of Omega, who was clearly hoping X Arc would make her go away. "I'm not even sure what I'm afraid of."

"Fefnir said that he made you afraid. That makes sense, doesn't it? You're a very powerful elf, but if he could cripple your emotions… And he was your builder." X Arc winced with sympathy. "_And _he raised you. What's the worst that could happen?" That was a serious question: he wanted to know her worst nightmares.

"I'll, I'll go catatonic again, afraid of everything, and Omega will attack everything, trying to destroy whatever is making me like that. That won't happen if I just go to sleep." To sleep forever: as good as dying. No, better, because death couldn't hold her. A peaceful, dreamless sleep. "Any remnants of Weil's programming still working, in here or in me… Wily's too. Both of them trying to make me not myself, but what they wanted." She closed her eyes.

"Well, there's hibernation for the first, and as for the second, that's reasonable too. Not because it's likely to happen, but we check the Judges every year, just because it would be so bad if it did happen to them. So we could monitor you even more closely, if you don't mind. I'm sure Harpuia would insist on it, and Leviathan has some data protection and warfare specialists. Then there's Phantom's team: everyone would help out."

She shook her head, black hair swaying from side to side behind her. "Not hibernation. I dream then, and I'd have nightmares. Nightmares where I could be terrified, or could reach for power."

"What's wrong about reaching for power?" he wondered. "You are the Mother Elf: you were made to be powerful. To help the world. I think that it's only responsible to be afraid of it being misused, but the more power you have, the more you can do to help people. From what I understand," and his apologetic tone asked her to please correct him if he was wrong: he wasn't even alive back then, "Dr. Weil wanted you not to use your power on your own, for what you wanted to do, because what you wanted to do was be free and stop him. So, what I want to know is how much of this do you think is _your _fear, what comes from _your _heart and mind, and how much is what you were made to feel?"

"I don't know," she confessed. Even after those decades sealed in the Sanctum Yggdrasil, X transferring her into his body while he slept to help her share his hibernation ability, and now these years of him being with her all the time, she still just didn't know. "Is that what really scares me? That I don't know myself anymore? Like I didn't know him. Either of them." Her father or her grandfather. "If they could be so cruel, then what about me? How could I trust myself?" With that madness in her so many times over.

"Oh, that explains why you're afraid of yourself. All fear is fear of the unknown, since if we know then we can do something about it." X Arc nodded, enlightened, now sitting cross-legged on the cables. "I could give you my hibernation programs, but do you really think that's the only way? Because I know they're worried about you, too. If you're ashamed of what Weil made you do we can just say that you're, well, a reploid. We're building more reploids every day, or we were before Weil got back. The problem I have is that if you're here, trapped in Omega, I don't think they'll feel like they managed to rescue. I think they'll feel like they failed you, and no one wants that." To fail her or for them to feel that way? Both?

"I was so terrified on the way here," she told him. "And now I… I know I should be afraid, but…"

"Lev-Actually, all of them said that if there's a 'should' in a statement, there's probably bad reasoning in there, since if the person didn't know it on some level they wouldn't use 'should' they'd use 'would' or better yet, 'will.' You should be afraid but you aren't, because… Because you managed to make it here?" he guessed, since she'd said on the way. "I think that's pretty impressive. I mean, if I was trapped somewhere and used for things like that, I'd never go back." He thought better of that statement. "Well, not unless I absolutely had to. And no one's going to die if I stay here, so you just came so that the Guardians wouldn't worry, right? That is very brave of you, and you must care about them a lot." That made him happy.

"I, I do." She did, even though she'd hurt them. Been made to hurt them, knowing it would hurt her.

"It might be that seeing me reminded you of why you came here, too. Then there's Omega, who isn't actually labeled that in the files. Maybe it would help if we gave him his proper name and a makeover too, so he doesn't have to put up with what Weil did to him, either." She could see him making a mental note as he nodded to himself. "What would be the most important thing to me is, you came here alone?"

"Yes." Of course. Who else would come with her? Who else could, that she'd risk on this journey.

"Now you're not alone anymore," he said as though it was the simplest thing in the world. "If you were alone and helpless, then no wonder you couldn't escape on your own. If I'd tried to do everything by myself, running the city?" He shuddered at the thought: he'd been so ignorant, he would have been useless no matter how hard he tried. "You have friends though, I know it. The Guardians told me that you were a hero, and I know they want to save you. So if you come back to Neo Arcadia, you won't be alone. All of us will be watching out for you. So you won't have to worry about anything sneaking up on you." In her programming, in her mind. "If I can get to know you, then I can help spot if you're acting differently, too. Like the hunters used to keep an eye on each other, so that the virus could be stopped before it made them hurt each other, right? Only I'm sure we can do better than that." They had the power to stop the virus, for one thing. The power that made the virus so strong in the first place.

"When I was new, I… I didn't know _anything_. There's still a lot I don't know, and a lot I need to do, but it's because of the Guardians, Ciel, Master X, Zero: it's because of everyone that I know who I am now. Going through something like that must have changed you, so it makes sense that you'd need time to rediscover who you are, so you can be sure you don't have to be afraid of that person. I don't think you do. If you're worried about people getting hurt, that means you care about people getting hurt, that you'll do your best to stop it. If you're worried about misusing your power, that means you'll try very hard not to. I wouldn't invite anyone inside Neo Arcadia unless I thought it was the best thing for the city, especially now that Master X said it's mine to look after. My responsibility. I think… No, I know that you should come back with everyone. That way, you won't have to be alone and afraid, second-guessing yourself all the time. All of the Guardians think they did terrible things during the wars, and there's the Judges too: they can teach you how to live with what happened. You can use your power for good again: If it helps, I could spend a long time listing ways in which you could _really _help everyone," he said earnestly. "So, on the one hand, it's kind of unfair for me to be trying to convince you to come to Neo Arcadia with us and not sleep all the time, because I have an ulterior motive, but the thing is that I want you to come back not just as someone who is the Guardians' and Ciel's family but as the ruler of Neo Arcadia because you really can help everyone. Even if it weren't for the people who care about you, just being purely objective, you'd be worth the risk a hundred times over just for _you _and what you can do. You're not a bad person or you wouldn't be worried about what you might do. If being used to kill, if those memories hurt you, then let me use you to save lives, please?"

He clasped his hands together, smiling to let her know that she didn't _have _to but this request was still serious. "Mother Elf, Dawn of Hope, would you please lend me your power so that we can help everyone? I mean, if you're helping save human lives then that would be proof you're not anything like a maverick, right? Making the lives of reploids better: isn't the opposite of everything Weil wanted? This way, you can have proof and I don't have to ask elves to lay down their lives." So please?

Aurora wondered at the way he made it seem so _simple_. Why be afraid, when there was a way to test whether she should be or not? Why worry about whether or not she would hurt people when there were already people hurting, and she could help them?

It felt wrong of her, greedy to accept this. She was an ugly, tainted thing that just ruined everything, but if she really could, if she really was needed?

Weil had made her into a tool, and now there was good work for her to do.

"Please let me know if I'm pushing you too hard," he asked her. "I don't want to make you unhappy. Everyone would be furious with me, too," he said, smiling at that and wanting her to share it because wasn't that great? Didn't that make her happy, that there were people who cared about her? "You don't have to answer the question right now, and you certainly don't have to stay in this body. I am a little worried about it, though, and you might be able to spot if anything was happening in its systems more than an ordinary elf. I think I could get Omega to accept one, since they're all derived from you. You don't have to stay here if it frightens you. I _would _ask you to stay if it was necessary." X Arc hoped she believed that, because then she could be sure that he wasn't just coddling her or taking too much of a risk for her sake. "It's not. Even if something happens, there's the Guardians, and the other elves. Ciel's going to work on a way to bring them back." Wasn't that exciting? "Reploids too, even the ones that died in the Elf War. Even the ones that died in the _Maverick Wars_." Miracle after miracle, a bright future, and she could be a part of it. She could help it become reality. "Come back with us. I'll ask one of the Guardians to keep an eye on you all the time, even." He was sure they had a lot of catching up to do.

"That… I'm sure they must be so busy," she said, looking down at her hands.

"No, they'll think it's a great idea. No one wants anything to happen to you." Of course not. "Ask them, they'll tell you it's worth it. For you _and _for everyone. Even if you were the Dark Elf, so what? Dr. Wily wanted to use Zero's power for evil, but it became Zero's power, and he used it to help Master X."

"I'm not Zero." She closed her eyes. No, she wasn't. She never would be worthy of comparison to him, just a knockoff.

"Well, who is?" Zero was a legend for good reason. "I'm not Master X, either, but he thinks I can do this, and _I _think _you _can do this. If you're nervous the way I was, if you can't believe in yourself yet, then believe in us. Let us help you. You won't be a burden, any more than I was. Maybe I'm a little rusty at what my job for them was: I was supposed to reassure people, get them to see what they could do." He stood up no, stepped forward to take her clasped hands, clasp them in his while looking up at her earnestly. "Come back with me. Back to Neo Arcadia. Back to the waking world, the world outside your systems where everyone lives, everyone who _misses _you. They must be waiting for you to come back: there's no way they would have let you go otherwise. Please, don't make me tell them that I couldn't make you come home with me, when they must be so worried? You know they'll be worried, you know they'll search for you."

She didn't want them to waste their time like that. "You really are like him," she said with the simulation of a lump in her throat. Was this, was this what he was once like, before the virus and her father hurt him?

Could she really disappoint X Arc, could she really risk tarnishing this faith in others and hope for the future? "Alright," she said, surrendering.

She saw the happiness on his face, and not just that. Anticipation, looking forward to a bright future. "Thanks," he said, smile a little more gentle as he did to acknowledge that he knew this was hard, and he really was grateful. "I'll go back to my body as soon as you open… Not your eyes, but… Oh, should I set up the teleport?"

"I know how teleportation works."

"Alright. Once you're in control of the body, I'll go back to mine and let them know that you're fine and that you'll be coming soon, okay? Don't even think about teleporting somewhere else or going to sleep: I have Teiwaz access too now. You have a lot more experience with these systems than I do, but I'm sure I'll figure it out, especially with the Guardians breathing down my neck to make sure you're alright."

"Alright." It was possible to believe, like this, that it really would be all right.

"Just to make sure, you know how to operate a body, right?"

"I spent a long time watching this one." She closed her eyes.

Blue eyes opened, shifting to stressed green. She was looking up at the inside of a capsule's lid.

"_Alright, I'll get going now_." She felt him flit away, and at first thought that he was taking to it oddly easily for an amateur but then, wasn't he in a copy of X's systems? The ones she'd wandered in, even if his mind wasn't as old, with layers built up of experiences?

She tightened white-gloved hands a fraction experimentally, shifted her shoulders and wondered at the way it began to feel like her body instead of like a puppet. Then again, it had been built to hold beings like her.

Teleport coordinates now, from X Arc's ID, and "_Don't be surprised if Fefnir and Leviathan hug you as soon as you arrive, okay?" _Warning her of what she was getting into.

She tried to get some more distance from the body during the teleport, worried that she'd react with fear to being grabbed, but when she appeared before them, when she saw Fefnir, when she saw the grin on his face and red arms held out to her, she distantly realized that nothing could have shielded her from this.

From him. From what she felt when his arms were around this body that had once been her prison.

From the ache that made her wrap her arms around him all but tight enough to bend the armor, press her face against his neck and cry, shoulders shaking and voice so very quiet, as though she didn't want him to hear how weak she was.

He just held her, didn't speak words of comfort because that wasn't what he was good at and the arms said it all, really. He was here. He'd put himself between her and danger for as long as she needed it. Whenever she'd let him.

Aurora felt Leviathan's cool hand touch her shoulder, just briefly, just a reminder that she was here too, that all of them were, that Fefnir wasn't the only one she could count on, that cared about her. She shook her head, not because she didn't believe that but because it was too much already.

If this, if she could have this?

The ache in this chest deepened, and it took her awhile to realize what it was that burdened her, what emotion truly had her quaking in white boots, something she knew from long ago, something that amazed her with its presence and its strength.

Hope.


	61. Back to Work

_Chapter delayed due to my body deciding to sleep for 2-3 hours at a time during the day instead of in one big lump at night & Persona 4 being awesome if I can keep my inner completionist from frothing at the mouth over the social link design._

_Also crackfic bunnies._

_This should be the final chapter of the story per se, but there's still a 'historical perspective' afterward to go and I'll be inserting a chapter earlier in the fic since I failed to take into consideration that readers might not also have read Wear and Tear, so the whole Marino/Axl/Cinnamon thing might have come out of nowhere when I'm trying to avoid Dei ex Machinae._

_Thanks to everyone who's read this far, and I hope you'll stay and like it well enough to see it through to the end. Since I have other projects I need to finish, I'm not certain when I'll do more Mega Man fic unless one of them wins the poll on my profile._

_Edit: Sigh, this is what happens when I try to keep updating while that sleep-deprived. Chapter edited to fix major and majorly stupid continuity error._

* * *

Ciel had one of Copy-X's eyes open and was observing the amount of responsiveness to stimuli like object proximity to gauge whether or not his systems were functioning properly (they were) and if they were operating entirely on automatic (also true) when the other eye snapped open and both of them focused on her face. "Ciel, are you alright?"

Ciel made another note to herself: the seraph armor design made hugging her creation a little difficult. She needed to fix that.

The reploid hugged her back, sitting up carefully and looking around at everyone. "Is everyone okay?"

"No one's in immediate danger," Phantom reported, since obviously the dead weren't okay but they were also beyond help.

"Where's Aurora?" Fefnir asked, starting to look a little suspicious. She hadn't done something self-sacrificial or decided to disappear again 'to protect them from her,' had she?

"She'll be coming soon. No one panic, okay? If there isn't anyone in Omega's body, it goes looking for someone to protect, so she'll have to stay in it for now. Dr. Cerveau, would you mind taking her via direct teleport to the Zan'ei medical and doing a custom remodel as soon as she gets here? I'll authorize top quality materials, just in case anyone figures out her identity or that of the body. It's top secret, of course."

"Of course," Dr. Cerveau agreed, looking a bit puzzled and glancing at Harpuia to confirm this reploid had the authority to authorize something like that. "But what about Dr. Ciel?"

"Would you please join him after being examined?" X Arc asked her. "You've been in the wastes, in space and had a cyber-elf attached to your nervous system, so I'm worried."

She nodded. Ciel definitely didn't want him to be _worried _about her, so the emotional argument was a much better reason to get unproductively poked at for some time now instead of after helping others than the mere hazards to her own life and limb. Ciel was certain that there were people other than her who were in danger, and in far more immediate need of repairs than she was. She would have insisted on going right over to the emergency room and lending a hand saving lives first if it weren't for her creation.

If she had gotten exposed to a significant amount of radiation or other hazards, it was already late enough that a few hours delay in getting decontaminated wouldn't make any significant difference, and since she hadn't already gotten a stroke, lending Iris her body probably hadn't harmed her. There wasn't any treatment for teleport sickness and Ciel knew that trying to monitor her own thoughts wouldn't help since that rationality was what it tampered with. The best preventative measure was a Cerveau, which she already had, and he was already pretty well trained at reminding her when she needed to do things or telling her when she was doing something she really shouldn't, so that was alright. If she was going to get cancer, it was unlikely to show up this quickly.

So getting an exam now, since she wasn't injured, was ninety-nine percent certain to be a complete waste of time that could have been spent saving lives. The only possible reason to go in now would be to keep other people from worrying, and that wouldn't have occurred to Ciel on her own, since she was used to managing risks and other than that worry was unproductive. It wasn't exactly that she'd forgotten sunscreen, it was that she was supposed to teleport right to Neo Arcadia after waking Zero, so she wasn't supposed to need to bring sunscreen, unlike important documents.

On the one hand, appearing to be entirely careless with her own life meant that her minion handled that for her and got to feel like he was needed instead of just being her maid, which was far more efficient and nicer for his ego. On the other, if she was worrying people… She _had _kind of been lazing off about keeping track of that stuff since that was what Cerveau was for.

"Are _you _alright?" Harpuia asked the boy with a firm tone, green eyes meeting his and letting him know that an 'I'm fine' would not be tolerated. The guardian knew he would want to get back to work, "Diagnostics." Now, since he'd just been unconscious.

X Arc obediently sent the data, then started to retract his wing panels. "I'll let Aurora know that it's okay to come."

Zero's original body was so much taller than he was. It wasn't that Fefnir had human ideas about relative heights, but he was used to Aurora being a relatively small glowing thing, if huge compared to the other elves. She'd had to drop to her knees to be held like this, and that wasn't right. It wasn't right at all. It made sense that she would be like this, but he still hated it.

Maybe that was what brought Leviathan to put her hand on the elf's shoulder instead of leaving the two of them alone. Just to prove that it was alright, they wanted her here, really, and she of all people didn't need to kneel to them.

Moving slightly away from the other three to give Aurora and Fefnir some space Phantom nodded, already in contact with Tech Kraken. "Fefnir, you're needed at the Command Post. We evacuated Neo Arcadia as much as we could," he told Copy-X, "but that means a lot of our personnel and equipment are scattered and we're operating at Class 2 Minimum Power." As the ground commander, the one who knew the most about transport options, Fefnir was the one who should take charge of recovering that equipment and personnel, at least getting it to a base where it would be safe until they had enough power to teleport it back to the city, or establishing new bases. "One of Weil's generals managed to restore power to an old ruined city." It must have taken him decades.

Fefnir sighed, arms tightening around his old friend. "Right." Damn. He'd rather stay with Aurora, but getting essential equipment out of the city meant _essential equipment was out of the city_, and now that Omega was gone that was an emergency all its own. "Someone she knows should stay with Aurora." Even if it couldn't be him, he wasn't abandoning her.

"I will," the boy assured him, coming closer as Lark and Dr. Cerveau got orders to report to different areas of medical. "I can't be seen like this, so I'll go home first. Master X… Grandfather gave me access to more of the systems, so I should be able to help Judge Biblio coordinate how we're going to power everything that needs to be done now." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I want the casualty and MIA lists, and keep me updated."

Leviathan and Fefnir looked slightly unhappy at that, but Harpuia nodded while Phantom let himself show an expression both proud and sad. These were the city's people, and 'Master X' should recognize their sacrifices. Even though deaths were inevitable in war, leaders _should _feel like they had failed when the people they swore to protect died, no matter the reason. Should grieve for them, and resolve to keep it from happening again. That was what responsibility meant, that was the price of power and command, and anyone who didn't pay it was scum.

"Did Master X tell you anything else?" Phantom asked, deliberately not looking at the bystanders. No, there was nothing odd at all about receiving instructions from the city's ruler. Really. No absence of ancient hero to be seen here, now move along.

"Well, he decided that my name should be X Arc," the boy, X Arc said, and blushed. "Or we decided that. I like it. And it's an honor," of course. "You don't mind?"

"Why would we? Leviathan wondered. "Never mind. Ciel, Cerveau, Lark: you three have your orders. Lieutenant Elpis… Lieutenant?" Why was she still all the way over there?

"Excuse me, but Dr. Ciel used the power source for my wings. I can't fly or heal anymore," Lark said apologetically.

"You still know how to do repairs the normal way," her fellow member of the Joint Protection Initiative reminded her as he checked the contents of Ciel's equipment bag. "I'm sure they'll need everyone they can get, especially if so many people left the city." Dr. Cerveau knew just how high a priority medical was: they wouldn't have left more than a skeleton crew of doctors there for Omega to kill.

"Yeah, I'd better head in too. There's only so much it's safe to do remotely," Fefnir sighed. "Aurora?" Would she be okay?

She shook her head, insisting that she didn't want to get in the way, that she wasn't worth it. The guardian grimaced but said, "Alright." He still waited a long moment before stepping back from her and triggering the teleport. Cerveau and Lark did the same, after nodding goodbye to Ciel and the others.

"I'll fly in Dr. Ciel," Harpuia said after stretching out his wing panels to confirm that the repairs had been completed. Not having the same degree of direct control of his nanites as before was a pain sometimes. Despite his superior control over large-scale systems, Leviathan's trick with her ice dragons wasn't something he could mimic, and she'd look after his officer while he got the scientist out of the battleground that still held undetonated mines her vision couldn't detect.

X Arc felt surprised for a moment that no one was making any particular fuss over his name. Then he realized that what a name meant was that someone had chosen who they were going to be, decided to establish their own identity and reason for living, and he'd done that years ago, hadn't he? Just like he'd become part of the family years ago.

So had he really told them anything they didn't already know? Someone who was part of this city, someone who would look after it and all its people: they knew it was part of who he was.

X Arc was suddenly very glad he'd turned the blushing off, because for them to hear that name he'd thought was a little presumptuous and not think anything of it? They would have given him weird looks if it wasn't appropriate, because it would be kind of stupid to spend so many years supposedly thinking about it and then settle on something stupid or random.

A name should be descriptive, should come from who someone was. So they really thought that X Arc fit him? They knew him well enough to see that right away?

He was really very happy, but they were right. His name was just a reminder of who he was, and the person he was had work to do. The person he was understood that they weren't going to fuss over or reassure him like he was still a nervous newbuilt, not when the city needed them. Needed him.

What, had he thought he would need to talk them out of holding the party _now_? That would be absurd, he thought, shaking the sand out of his right set of wing panels before pulling them in too. "I know no one's had time to do reports, but I need every bit of data you can send me about what's happened without making it obvious."

"Don't worry: all of us have been out of touch to one degree or another. Fefnir will be pulling activity logs to look over already, I'm sure," Harpuia reassured him, making sure he had a secure hold on Dr. Ciel. No, it wouldn't be obvious that 'Master X' hadn't been watching over Neo Arcadia all along. "We'll pass them on."

Ciel wanted to say that it wasn't necessary for one of the Guardians to carry her, really, but having them send out someone just for her? This would be faster, but she was still blushing. Thinking of how many people would kill to be in the arms of Guardian Harpuia wasn't helping.

"Harpuia, Leviathan, I want a preliminary report on Area Zero in a week. Grab everyone in bio that isn't on urgent life support." With the population spread out, environmental analysts would need to check those areas for hazards to determine who could stay where and who had to be brought back to the city quickly, so that department was going to be strapped for personnel and X Arc was very relieved to see that Judge Cubit was okay, since it was her department and she'd know best who among the doctors in training and other staff could substitute for personnel sent away from their normal duties. "As for Infel Phira…"

"It's in the sky, therefore it's Harpuia's problem," Leviathan said as Harpuia took off. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping Aurora company in medical?" And figuring out how they were going to integrate her into the city, since public relations was X Arc's particular area?

"Oh, yes," X Arc said, but seemed a bit like he was waiting for something.

Phantom smiled at him. "Welcome home." Things like that were obvious, but sometimes they still needed to be said, and in their eyes, five was still a child, reploid or human.

He and Leviathan could see him relax, with this proof that yes, he was home, it was over, and while it would take a long time for things to get back to normal, with people scattered all over the world, perhaps to stay, perhaps even to make some of those ruins into the cores of new cities, it would be the good kind of not normal. Not the desperate struggle to survive, not backsliding towards poverty, but progress. The fight to grow, to seize the full potential of their future.

He was home, and the Guardians were here. He was safe. "Now shoo," Leviathan said fondly. "We'll see you later." At the first of several planning meetings in the family quarters, she was sure.

"See you," he said, taking Aurora's hand and waiting until she looked at him to smile at her. "Come on, let me show you my city."

The instant the light faded away, Leviathan put her fingers to her lips and whistled, a piercing note on frequencies humans and most reploids couldn't detect.

A horde of lights swarmed towards her, first red, then her own Will'o'wisps responded and then even a scattering of green Rekku elves on airspace patrol duty.

Leviathan stood regally amidst the aura of otherworldly power and, leveling her spear, issued a command that hadn't been heard in almost a century: "Purge."

One of those lights winked out: impossible to tell which one in the mass of them, but they would be identified later, their sacrifice placed on the lists of honor, but it would never be written what program they had carried, or when they were commanded to use it.

Cubit and Schilt teleported out once they saw it was done.

Elpis clapped her hands to her mouth, eyes wide open in horror as she let out a choked-off cry, finally able to realize what had been happening to her. "Dismissed," Leviathan told the elves, and knelt down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's alright. You didn't hurt anyone." An old, old litany of reassurances the Guardians had used too many times to talk down people rescued from the control of Baby Elves. "It's not your fault you thought those things: that's how it works, it tampers with what you know is right. The more determined to do the right thing someone is, the more vulnerable they can be, since that's one of the things it _uses_." When it was designed to steal away the world's heroes, make them think that the only way to make it a better place was to destroy it.

"That was… I…" Elpis' system error check and maintenance systems were on overdrive, because something had been so wrong, so very, very wrong with what made her _herself _and she hadn't seen it. What if she missed something else? By Master X, what if it was still there?! Elpis' hands clawed at her head, tangling golden strands as if she had enough hand strength to puncture her skull and take it _out._ The now-amateur historian's knowledge of the virus made it even worse: she knew what had happened to her, what could have happened, and it was the stuff of a century's nightmares, of an era of desperate war.

"That was _the virus_," Leviathan said firmly, grabbing those hands and pulling them down, making sure Elpis couldn't scratch at her palms, either. "But it's over. No one else was infected." Cubit and Schilt were exposed when Phantom took them down, but both of them were old and very, very familiar with mind control. Even after the physical damage Harpuia did to her was repaired, the technique he'd used had kept her system scrambled enough that although she wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of detecting the virus, there hadn't been enough free system resources for it to build enough of itself to fully take over, much less make her contagious. "We wouldn't have let you infect anyone else: all of the Guardians could detect it there and we would have done something earlier if there was any danger, alright? You didn't do anything wrong, and what you're remembering: that's what the virus does to people. That it's bothering you so much is just proof that _you _aren't like that, alright?" The Guardian of the Dark Oceans rarely sounded gentle, but this kind of situation called for it. "I'm sorry for leaving you with it so long." But the return of the Sigma virus, even if they had cyber-elves now (even if they had _the Mother Elf _now) and it was easily dealt with was something that wasn't worth mentioning.

Wasn't something to trouble the city or young X Arc with, not when they were the Guardians and this was what they did.

For three ancient evils, the plagues of three eras to return at once was a little ridiculous. What was even more ridiculous, the Guardian mused, was that Wily had _still _lost. And probably still wouldn't take the hint, which was why they would be getting Ciel's schematics for that box and putting it somewhere for a _very, _very long time.

Honestly, Leviathan wasn't sure if Elpis could have become contagious to begin with. Her personality might have been compatible with the Sigma virus, but her construction wasn't. Only some of that was deliberate, the rest was because, well, not having a lot of spare resources meant the virus couldn't use them either. If a Neo Arcadian reploid suddenly started going through self-repair materials faster, that would still raise a red flag in the system even if most of the people who looked those over thought it was just an early warning system for various irregularities and health problems instead of anything to do with a long-extinct virus.

What she said was, "Your mission was accomplished. Well done."

The younger reploid looked at her almost desperately, wanting to believe those words, wanting to believe that she hadn't failed her city despite, for a long moment, believing things that were against everything it stood for. Everything it proved, by standing there. By still standing instead of being torn apart by friction between human and reploid.

"Come on now," Leviathan said, tugging at her hands to make her stand up. "This is the best part."

"What's that?" she asked, since it was clear she was meant to.

"The heroes' triumphant return. Try to find time to enjoy it. I'll want a copy of your report and we need the sitrep of the Antarctic Base by tomorrow." How long it could stay there with only a skeleton crew before experiments and other things were ruined by neglect. "You're also the officer in charge of the Area Zero base camp." Since her people built it. "Don't worry: we'll keep you too busy to think stupid scrap." That she was weak for letting the virus take her over the way it had countless other reploids, for instance.

The way it would have inevitably gotten someone as brave as her, if she'd been built a century ago. Unless she died first.

The way it would have gotten the boy – X Arc.

But now the scourge her father spent decades barely holding back was too weak to even rate a footnote in the story of the Third Elf War. They weren't going to dignify Wily with a mention if she had anything to do with it.

For that matter, Weil had died of his own arrogance, thinking he could just make use of other people's strength without consequences.

"Come on," she said, pulling Elpis along as she walked forward. "Time to get to work."


	62. Onto The Seventh Generation

_So, it's too short, and it took too damn long, and it's not quite what I had in mind, but it's an epilogue._

* * *

"_You know, they're out of sight, you can go ahead and switch weapons now."_

Ignoring the disembodied voice, the courier dashed behind another piece of ancient rubble before turning to fire again, eyes closed in order to focus on sonar.

"_The only valid _tactical _reason to use an energy pistol like this when you're going for lethal shots is if you're worried about infection. They're good for that: melee weapons take you too close for comfort and buster shots could set off a chain reaction with their power source that showers the area with the virus. Since these so-called mavericks," _the coldness of that tone showed what this warrior thought of anyone who would _willingly _call themselves a maverick. It was an insult to all those who would much rather have died rather than be taken, if they'd had any choice at all. "_Aren't infected, the only reason you're using what, your third best weapon is to set a good example for those two. Trust me, they're out of sight."_

"_I don't trust them not to double back." _ Even with the package - Ah, there, got it. Giroette smiled as the unit that had to be this group's commander finally started squealing to its boss. "_And I'm worried about more Model W contamination."_

"_These drones? They're not carriers."_

"_What?" _The agent scowled, even said, "Damn!" Weeks of following up leads, this entire sting operation, wasted! Not that making progress towards shutting down a raider organization this good wasn't a good thing, but if they weren't the ones tied to whoever was using Model W, that put the investigation right back at square one!

"_Tsk tsk," _the voice in the reploid's head said, chuckling, as Giro finally triggered the merge. If 'the courier' didn't need to worry about 'the kids learning the family business'getting additional contamination, or about keeping these goons alive long enough to send enough signals for HQ to get a start on decryption and tracing, _that _was when it was a good idea to take them down fast, in order to make sure Vent and Aile were okay. "_Those who don't learn from basic…"_

"_Are you going to tell me what you mean?" _Because a lot of the time all the biometals did was drop hints. Models F and P were notorious for it.

"_Don't get your hair in a bunch, there's no way Prairie won't figure this out as soon as you make the report, so I'll tell you. You made this little sting of yours too good to pass up. Oh, there's nothing suspicious about having only one guard, and theoretically you don't know those kids are infected, so no reason not to take them along. It's not like Model X _needs _protection, but even if you weren't supposed to have any Chosen here, this _is _still Model X we're talking about. Only an idiot wouldn't expect casualties." _

"_So you're saying they sent uninfected units so that the autopsies wouldn't reveal their connection to whoever's using Model W?" _

"_Either that, or they're more worried about the kids than about you."_

Because Model W infection automatically made someone a candidate to be Chosen by one of the biometals? "_So you do think we've got a leak."_

"_No, I think that no one's going to go around killing everyone but small humans, infecting them with Model W and letting them end up in the general population instead of a lab somewhere without having a good reason to do something so calculated to get the Guardian Force after their asses the instant you realized something was up with the sudden demographic shift." _

Since their creation, the biometals carrying the imprints of the heroes had been fairly evenly split around reploids and humans. The Chosen obviously felt a duty to be at the forefront of civilizations' defense, since they had the power now, and the biometals weren't going to pick anyone who didn't already feel that way. Normally someone who hadn't already chosen this lifestyle, someone who hadn't already proved that they could bear a burden like this wouldn't even be in the running. Being Chosen was supposed to be a badge of honor, the crown of a lifetime of service, a sign you were considered a worthy heir to the legacy left behind by the Guardians and Master X.

Now Giro was the only veteran biometal holder left, and the courier had more than a small suspicion that was because of Model Z. The unusually talkative biometal. Especially since the Guardians had donated copies of their tactical banks to the project before vanishing, while Model Z was supposed to only be a partial recovery from the hero's empty body. According to Dr. Ciel. Who tended to smile a lot when the subject of _any _of her babies came up, forget the most advanced products of her work to erase the boundaries between human and reploid, not to mention gather data on the special abilities of the heroes until they could be fully analyzed and ordinary humans and reploids could be given those upgrades. It wasn't as though they could ask people who had given so much to the world to become lab rats, after all, no matter how much it would advance mechanical science.

For _all four_ of the original Guardian biometals to suddenly bid farewell to their previous chosen, one after another, and choose underage, impressionable humans who, from what Thetis especially had gotten up to so far, had no idea what it meant to have power like that? No idea that just because he _could _do something didn't mean he _should_?

Eventually he'd exhausted the patience of Guardian Leviathan's echo. Defending the seas, yes. Breaking other people's things like a brat who refused to grow up and learn why people made the hard choices like building heavy metal extraction facilities despite the short-term damage to sea life? Hell no. After they fished the ice cube out of the water and brought him and the biometal to Dr. Ciel's lab…

Oh, right, Dr. Ciel.

Calling up internal com, confident that whoever this was couldn't detect portal-based transmissions (yet) got an instant response. "Samples?"

"No samples."

"Aww." Giro could hear the pout. "Why not?"

"Biometal Z thinks it's probably a misinformation attempt. Why have I suddenly gotten the feeling that you had a hidden motive in approving this op?"

"Because you're my daughter after all, Piroette."

"It's _Giroette_."

Ciel sighed. "I _said _Giroette: why did you have to change your name to something that sounds exactly the same if you're going to be so cranky about it? And, I mean, Giro? I gave you a name that advertises your grace," after all the work she'd put into Piroette's experimental balance and agility systems, the one that made the reploid such a perfect match for Biometal Z, "And then you change it to something that makes you sound like a sandwich."

"I blame the pink," was Giro's response, although she laughed a moment later.

As Ciel sighed again. "Well, if I keep building myself children, eventually one of you inherit my favorite color. Speaking of which, how are my-"

"You're hoping Model X will pick one of them during the attack." So _that _was why she'd let them go into even… _especially _minimal danger. So far, none of the infected had suffered any negative effects from carrying Model W nanites as well as the standard Model 1 human life-support and augmentation set, but Dr. Ciel's theory was that the other biometals had chosen infected humans to protect the hosts. It was possible that Thetis' bioterrorism was due to Model W tilting him towards nihilistic megalomania, but Ciel's assessment as a mother was that he was just a self-righteous brat who needed a good dose of reality. "For Harpuia's sake, I already have enough trouble keeping the two of them from 'helping' by getting themselves into trouble every fi-" She whirled as she heard the noise in the distance, the sound of an oversized mech tearing through the mechanical forest. "I'll call you back later."

* * *

"Moooom_…_" Giro drawled, because someone had better give someone else an explanation or else they were in so much trouble, and it wasn't her this time. Being a Special Investigator did in fact rock sometimes.

"Yes, dear?"

"Since when can biometals divide?"

"Well, since I did base all of them on Model 1 and if that living metal didn't make more of itself under the proper circumstances, I wouldn't have been able to use it as the basis for the standard symbiote system, now could I? There wouldn't have been enough."

"So this isn't a sign that Model W is corrupting the other biometals?" And why did Giro think her mother was lying through her pearly white ceramic alloy teeth?

"I shouldn't think so. …Is it Model X or Model Z?"

"Model X."

"Should be fine, then."

"Is there a reason Model Z might _not _be fine, then?"

"I'm sorry, I'll call you back later."

"Mo-"

"Really, Giroette, you and Prairie were the ones who asked me to take time out of my lab to visit this city and be kidnapping attempt bait. I'm not going to make the first possible assassin I've detected in all this time come back later because I'm on the phone."

"_How come he gets the one that can fly!_"

"And it sounds like you're a little busy over there. Say hello to my grandchildren for me."

* * *

_Of course Ciel would say that she loves all her children, reploid and human, equally. However, despite totally rejecting the original pink armor design, Giro is currently kind of in the lead due to A) having a job that makes the world a better place (even if it's not science), B) getting married and C) bringing home grandbabies._

_When one thinks of how many kids Dr. Wily built..._


End file.
